 right empty chair hey I got it but I don't want to see it this big though radical fundamental principles of freedom rational self-interest and individual rights this is the Iran book show alright everybody welcome to your own book show on this what is it it's Wednesday I'm not used to doing these shows on a Wednesday night usually it's Thursday but tomorrow's Christmas party so here we are and I'm joined by Jonathan Honig am I saying your name right I somebody told me today that I said that I'm pronouncing it wrong. Well you're only known you for 23 years so it's Jonathan Honig and I'm delighted to be with you I've been a longtime fan and supporter as you know and you know as we kind of mentioned in the pre-show it's it's nice to be able to talk about something briefly a little bit lighter for once in many many weeks you know given us of it you know seriousness of importance of what you've been discussing I'm happy to be around a slightly lighter topic. Well I'm glad I'm glad I think I think it is nice to get a break and to talk about something that's lighter that's pro life that's pro values and maybe not my values but we'll talk about that but but a lot of people took for a lot of people including Ayn Rand and Lenny Pieckoff and I know including you you know this issue is an important one in terms of personal values the idea of pets. Now you're gonna we're gonna walk through a visual presentation Jonathan has a PowerPoint presentation for us which we haven't I don't think we've ever done before but this should be fun the good thing about this is it has lots of photos photos of pets Jonathan and it also has photos of Ayn Rand and Lenny Pieckoff with their pets so it'll be it'll be a great basis from which to have a discussion so so we're gonna we're gonna do that but I don't know what you have planned in the presentation but assuming you're gonna tell us a little bit about your experience with with pets and and ultimately get to the value it represents for you and then you know as we move through this. I mean I think our audience will be slightly because they know you as a very warm person and they know you as you know and I have to say your fascination with babies you've talked to many. I love babies. Right and babies repulse me personally repulse me so there's a little bit of a deck you know. Pretty funny. It's a different approach. I know what I'm saying and I you know and I and I've enjoyed I have to say that only I'm trying to think if you know I don't have many friends who have pets but Leonard has had a dog for a long time he said he said two dogs that I since I've known him and I got along fabulously with them. I definitely enjoyed them. I was always the barrier between the dog and my wife who really does not like dogs and I get along well with them. I just would never want to for me it's it's more of an issue of the maybe like babies for you right the investment of time and effort and focus and all of that but when I've had an opportunity to play with Leonard's dogs those that's always been fun. Yeah I mean it's it's part of what was the genesis and you know Dr. Brook and I are talking about the publication of this new book. Yeah exactly Leonard peak off an iron random pets lifted up a little bit. There you go. And you really love a dog. On the cover this is Dr. Peacock's dog. Now it may he rest in peace. Yeah right about a year ago I think two years ago. Yeah a little bit ago and then before that he had a dog by the name of Cole. But Kiki was was the one he really thoughtful. Did you you know is it surprised you your own as as a non dog lover or value or I should say does it surprise you how serious what you observe because you know people now they spend more on their pets than they ever have that spending does not go down. Pet innovation and care has kind of gone up dramatically and that investment goes up your that surprise you that people value you know having these animal companions more and more every year. I don't think it really surprised me. I mean people have always had pets around us right. I mean their friends had pets and family members of that pets. So pets have always been a part of human life I think or at least over the last hundred hundred fifty years as we become richer right before before the pets were to the extent we had animals they were they were functioning right. They they herding dogs and they actually did a job. So it doesn't surprise me. People have these deep relationships with the pets. I you know I find it strange to live with an animal in the house. You know I think I wanted a pet when I was growing up. But my parents always denied it said no because we always lived in small apartments in Israel. You never do in the homes and they thought it would be cool for the back backyard to leave the dog run the dog. Yeah. No no backyard and apartments are small. I mean by by American standards the condos are small. So you know we lived in a you know I don't know a 1200 square foot apartment which is fairly big but there were six of us right. Four kids and two adults one bathroom. I mean but that was and we were middle class. We were quite comfortable. So but the dog certainly is and a pet is an investment and your point after broke about time. Don't call me Dr. Book. Call me Iran. Your point Iran about time is actually Leonard mentions in that in the book. You know he put a little bit quick. You know he was very close. Obviously he's mentioned with Kiki and Cole and he says someone asked you know part of the book is basically to make you a better pet owner a more informed pet owner. So he goes through a series of Q&A questions that he was asked in his podcast in his radio show. He answered a lot of questions about dogs and cats. Part of what this book is is a companion of them. But you know he's asked this dog. Did dogs have psychological needs. You know what is a dog psychological needs. This is an animal that acts on instinct. You know what psychological needs does it have. And he says what are the top needs is often ignored. Time time with your dog. Time you spend petting playing etcetera the time just being there with him even you're busy with someone else. But time he doesn't mean 24 7 that that that make your pet loved or give it to someone who can. He's very fatic about dog raising. So part of I think what makes us really interesting. I'm happy to go to the presentation if you'd like. Yeah we go to that. And by the way guys you can ask questions. You know we'll we'll we'll favor questions on topic for now. But you know Jonathan has thoughts on all kinds of things. So I'm sure you guys can ask a wide array of questions. As you know Jonathan usually appears in much larger audiences than in much bigger forums on Fox News than mine and does a fantastic job representing kind of free markets and capitalism on those shows. And and and does it in an entertaining friendly. I think I think in doing way. So I think it's really built an audience for himself over the years. But but yeah so feel free to ask questions about anything. But but let's try to let's try to focus on on this and for now and then broaden it if you guys want later on. Great. Great. Thank you your own first kind words as well. I mean well you know the whole basis is a question that Dr. P cost was asked in his podcast years ago. Look an animal is an animal by instinct. Can you really love something that you know acts by instinct. And for me I always have. This is a photo of me somewhere in the early 1980s. I don't know exactly where where winning third place in a dog masquerade contest. My little Duffy at the time is wearing a lifeguard outfits only at the third place I believe. But you know I've always had a very close relationship your own with some dogs. In fact that's part of what they speak off talks about in the title essay of the book is that you know you can love a certain animal certain animals your own your own. And I certainly love little Duffy there. And we had our routines you know this is one of the things when you have a dog it's like in me the cat perhaps you know you have your routines sleep together in a certain way it comes and get gets you in the morning a certain way and even Duffy and I had that in the third grade. Later in life I developed a relationship with a real dog if you will Bailey 140 pound Saint Bernard Bernese mountain mix. Wow. Which you know had a very deep endearing relationship with that you know I could go on for a long time we just lost Bailey a couple of years ago. But for me it's it's not necessarily been self evident but it's very been profound my love for dog my attachment for dogs and how important values they've been in my life. And and your own I mean you're no stranger to the Dr. Leonard Peekoff podcast because you were a guest host of it for many years. Yep. And Dr. Peekoff needs to be working on this because his website and the Peekoff podcasts are such a treasure trove of interesting fascinating perspective on objectivism. There has been a compendium published called keeping it real by Barry Wood which has a lot of that mentioned kind of summarized in some excerpts but Dr. Peekoff's podcast is such an amazing treasure trove. And you know you remember that Dr. Peekoff often talked about his dogs on the podcast. He was he was asked questions about dogs and animal rights all the time. Yeah I mean he really I think enjoyed his favorite part of the podcast were often the kind of personal quite the personal questions questions about things like relationships and pets and personal values. I think he really really enjoyed I mean the reason he had me as a guest host was because I could take all the politics stuff get that off his desk because that was the that was the the ugly and the and the less interesting and the less fun topics and he got to talk about sex and relationships and and pets and I think he really enjoyed that and he enjoyed he really enjoyed young people asking questions and knowing that he might have a real impact on on somebody's life and help them out with struggles with the family struggles with again relationships you know and just just orient them in terms of their personal values and help them get on a good path in life and I think that he got a lot of pleasure out of that. You're right Ron I remember even his introduction he would say questions about sex relationships family but not practical politics you have you got him at all those. I did I did. Well so many of those questions to him many were about and I was such an avid fan and still am I a lot of his podcasts and lectures downloaded and often lifts into them when I'm walking the dog among other things but so many of the questions were on not just animal rights but even on relationships with pets and so you knew he was a dog lover I knew he was a dog lover but it always seemed kind of private you know something that was over here not integrated with philosophy was just oh yeah everyone loves dogs this is this is just you know self-evident and miss ran I think because obviously she didn't have a podcast maybe it's less well known but her certainly her fans if you read the literature or the you know memoirs about Iran often mention her cats a relationship with her cats certainly a hundred voices the letters of Iran those were great sources for me and working on can you really love the dog and even her fiction your own as some wonderful references and metaphors to cats by the way can people find a book book is available exclusively on Amazon okay art cover and audible read by me not by Dr. Peacock and Kindle so it's however you want to get it nice nice yeah but that's again I mean just like Dr. Peacock it's not that his love for cats was private but Dr. Peacock didn't write up until now he didn't write on cats or our dogs dogs yeah he ran on pets you know he he wrote on very serious epistemological issues so it seemed like something that was relatively private for him to value and the same thing with miss ran you know miss ran didn't write essays about cat ownership to my knowledge well but although as we get into she did some of that her fictionist tremendous references about cats and as you know your own every couple of years this cat fancy article goes around this cat fancy letter and people don't know but I'm I'm Rand wrote a letter to cat fancy magazine which had just launched and you know it's a charming little letter and she won't read the whole thing necessarily she's loves cats in general and two in particular she's a quote the part that always gets the press I can demonstrate objectively that cats are a great value in the charter of cat fancy magazine can serve as part of the evidence it's such a charming story and part of I'm Rand's history and you know it always gets coverage much more than I'm Rand's ideas this is from the Atlantic which is fairly large readership the internet is having a weird iron ran moment you know her love of cats so surprise that I ran can love cats here's a blog post it's difficult to think of something anything that could endear I ran to me but the news she was a cat person certainly would be in that unlikely ballpark you know so people were shocked every couple of years that I read who they only know as that Simpsons parody values something like me just like me I'm I'm a normal person that I mean so there's something about that I always found so fascinating that it was this bridge you know there's a bridge there between this is from the business insider apparently she was all all about cats what just so anyway that goes on and on and I saw a smirk but also that bridge about people love both you know lots of people loving animals so so many people love their pets just like miss ran and dr. Peacock and then knowing dr. Peacock's really deep and thoughtful lover his dogs and miss Rans revealing I think if you look for it her moving relationship with our cats and I set out on this kind of quest perhaps put together a project that answers what his objective is I have to say about a very universal topic probably certainly more universal than a piston you know epistemology for most people this is more like you know philosophy for Eddie Willers which is important as well I was fortunate enough to meet dr. Peacock and I have to say found him to be such an absolute delight of a real person I mean when you've studied someone for years and listened to hours of their lectures and you know really trusts and believe them and learn a lot from them there's a he's a just a razor-sharp 90-year-old delight and a real man a real man we shared pineapple pizza so not allowed pineapple and pizza linda pico he requested it and it's tmi but just so years ago in his podcast the kind of whole idea here you're he was asked about this very question can you really love a pet and dr. Peacock's is a podcaster a delight as well he had this unique passionate answer that stuck with me and that became the basis of the new book can you really love a dog and here's the setup if I can share it this is from me I'll read this just yeah we did just for the podcast for people listening to the podcast yeah I mean love after all is a tribute we reserve only for a handful of human beings to love someone is to regard that person as an unrepeatable value and though there are many human beings I respect admire and care for there's only a few for whom I can say with full meaning and precision I love you love between human humans requires a deep spiritual affinity to borrow from Aristotle it is a single soul dwelling in two bodies how could one possibly feel that way towards a pet and dr. Peacock answers that question beautifully and succinctly and I'll share this if I may your own that this is his the audio of his original podcast answer now we have to cut it up a little bit but you'll hear dr. Peacock's voice for those who haven't heard it answering just a little bit of this question can you really love a dog oh I think absolutely as far as love is concerned I do believe that it's possible to love an animal love in onron's definition is a response which is irreplaceable nothing else can fill this place we share in common that we're both striving to achieve life on our own level so I would say definitely yes in that sense you can feel love for a specific animal as you can for a human being I wouldn't be as intense as passionate as for a human being but it still qualifies love certainly in my case it did pretty cool obviously and dr. Peacock has such a thoughtful purposeful you know you're on most people would say of course you can love a dog next question you know and like everything he did there's such precision and thinking really considered thinking behind it definitely and part of what to me was so interesting you know your own dr. Peacock insisted that this was not a philosophy book but he often applies miss ranz of course ideas to these issues about you know in fact here he taught he quotes miss ranz definition of what a value is saying he dot quoting from dr. Peacock now a dog doesn't know when he runs to eat that he's a value pursuer but he has values such as food exercise games sleep and others which up to a point are similar than ours and I love this line what he wants in perceptual terms is often what we want in conceptual terms so he has this way of applying you know philosophical ideas in a thoughtful way even as something seemingly benign as pet ownership so um very cool very cool um you know miss ranz and relationship with her cats is so often talked about in the literature literature and you know your own working with the iron ran institute on this project very closely Jeff breeding the staff at the archives there is such an unbelievable treasure trove of fascinating material about miss ranz and part of what this book has you know it is never before photos of miss ranz now people listening to podcasts this is a photo of miss ranz and her cat partalia in 1937 miss ranz was a young woman just in her early 30s at that point um and what you'll see in these photos is that they're they're unguarded you know they you see miss ranz not necessarily posing for the camera with her cats their private moments with her that i find it you know that most people have only seen a handful of photos of her so we see her in new environments with her cats often most often very relaxed in the very intimate fashion this is again as tartalia in the 40s and this one is my favorite second favorite in the whole book um this is mr. o'connor frank o'connor miss ranz in the 1960s on their pouch and they are both kind of cradling uh their cat on miss ranz chest and miss ranz would often sit even mike wallace urone talks about this she would lie back on that couch with her cat on her chest talking about epistemology and waxing of so you're seeing that right there isn't it it's such a touching photo yeah um and so very much of that and of course the 60s era plastic covers over the couch um so there's a history element to this as well that i think is is really and there's a second cat in the photo looking down yes yes exactly yeah i mean it's and again it's unguarded it's it's her in a intimate moment i think and and there's a lot of that in us so working with the institute to be able to do this is so um was so meaningful to me and helpful to me so thank you again to them in advance we really get into this idea of the meaning of loving a pet from a philosophical perspective you know dr. peakoff has asked is it ever proper to get angry at your pet you know i mean your pet does not making necessarily rational decisions so you know alright he's he's this is something he thinks about anger is a moral combination of some very fascinating interesting answer about these questions um you know he's he's asked the question i love my dog but in the city where i live and work can't afford a decent apartment that allows dogs what should i do it's a bit of history of dr. peakoff says why do you need a decent apartment to afford grad school in new york city i'd live in a walk-up apartment with roaches rats dying no he'd have to dent the end so i mean there's you learn a lot about him it's an intimate writing from dr. peakoff that i i don't think has ever necessarily been published before um i think it's it's really unlike anything else in the canon and uh so you know please be able to bring it to the world and share it with your listeners and your viewers as you said i mean he was grieving dr. peakoff was was grieving is still grieving kiki he talked about this process being a real healing process of him working on this book with me it was a tribute to her and it's also filled with photos of him and kiki again you're looking at a photo of dr. peakoff on his couch with kiki on his lap very quiet not made up not debating not engaged in philosophy just a very intimate quiet moments this is another one too and if you can notice dr. peakoff is sitting on his famed coffee table which is his books stacked i don't i don't know if people know about this famed coffee table but that i can't what it was made but it was made when he only had when he had two books it was before dim and uh one book one one is the you can see it looks like two books one is uh ominous parallels and the other one is opa i can't remember when that was made sometime in the 90s i think after opa had come out i only i only knew about it because of the podcast which you know they were it's after after peakoff mentioned podcast but again you're seeing him in his box of shorts and frankly we asked a number of times it's actually you really want this picture in you in your box you said i'm curious he had no problem with it so you know there's a sense of objectivist as being these uptight stuffy you know dr spock type things and you know you're seeing dr peakoff and miss ran just very casual very intimate loving moments that just delight in and i hope our audience does as well um you know i was a little nervous here on i must say that if you listen to dr peakoff over the years you know writing is not easy for him i don't think i'm speaking out of turn he takes every word seriously every comma every period he's brilliant at it but it's it's it's woke what's the story that he started on with his parallels and he said they'll be ready in 18 months and it was like five years or eight yeah that's an amazing book but you know he is excruciatingly detailed in fact he rewrote all of his responses originally i was going to say hey can i transcribe this and and publish he said okay but wait a minute let me rewrite it he rewrote it again hand corrected things including my intro my first intro he just threw out now i don't like to start off all right um you're looking at some photos of dr peakoff uh uh this is the manuscript that he hand corrected and i mean look at that he is an unbelievable expert proofreader oh yeah i mean everything little this is a 90 year old man everything was um he caught every little air that even the proofreaders that i hired didn't catch and then in the lower i have another photo here of dr peakoff at his desk you can see in the upper right hand corner is what picture of his dog kiki yep the other side of dr peakoff's desk is a photo of miss him and miss ramp and so you know that where kiki sits on the hierarchy here um and uh he worked on this quite a bit and his his love of kiki was so profound he writes about plastering his house with pictures of her everywhere 13 wall posters 22 17 and 22 smaller ones throughout the house so whenever i go to my house now she's there with me grinning at me or sleeping her former bed or lying on her back and all the rest all that gives me a continuous sense of her visual reality which takes away some of the pain of her loss you know you sense that you know making up 40 posters to put around your home so that in fact here's one share of a photo above dr peakoff's mantle with a beautiful picture of kiki there exactly what he you know alluding to and this was such a special part of his life i'll tell one more quick story about dr peakoff's with kiki gone he i think it's safe to say adopted a squirrel visitor and i saw one of the most amazing things i've ever seen ringling brothers and gunther gable williams couldn't have pulled this off dr peakoff would sit in his on his couch open the door he put a almond in the middle of the room and not on command but within a minute and a half a squirrel would come down come into his house sit get the almond go right back out the door again and this was his visitor he talked about it as his family and they squirrel family and there's a quote in the book from mama ducky wolf was franco conras niece and she has memory of miss rand and her cats he she wrote or she recalls ian had a cat trained to hop on the toilet seat instead of going to a litter box it was trained to hop up on the toilet seat and use the toilet i was in such awe of it when i was a kid and that's how i felt when i saw dr dr peakoff it's like what is he gonna do pull out an old volume of atlas or something no he sits down in this squirrel comes into the out just a sec really it's fun and yeah it is why was that cat fancy article so interesting your own i mean you've seen that come around before yep is because i you've heard oh i think it's so interesting what do you what do you make it well i mean i think it's i think it humanizes her in a way to people who don't really have not really engaged in her ideas or engaged with her all they know is the you know the slanderous stuff that's been written about her all they know is the negatives and and they they think of her in terms of the stereotype of self-interest or selfishness rather than as what she understood those terms to mean as a as a real value seeker as a life seeker but so the the the the i think the article presents is interesting to people because it's it's so opposite of what they expect yep yeah absolutely and you know there there is that stereotype and so many people and this they can connect with their on it because they they love their cats they love their dogs so they it's a shared value and and to me i mean part of what i think especially the photos uh uh uh this book are so meaningful is that miss ran and dr peacock who even for me as a student of objectivism have always been almost you know not real people in effect you know they're immense teachers they're you know they're writers or scholars huge impact in my life but you know this presents them as you said you're on doing something that i do every day valuing something very human and miss ran always talked about philosophies being a philosopher living on earth and the fact dr peacock i believe applies that philosophy to dog ownership makes us such a unique project this is a quote i won't read the whole thing but part of what we talk about is losing a pet and uh i'm ran's veterinarian excerpted from a hundred voices scott o'connell's book has a memory of her veterinarian talking about miss ran losing her cat and again i'll read the whole thing but you know there's twice where miss ran asks the doctor doctor why my cat but why my frisco quoting from the doctor now it was almost like a little child trying to understand why her pet her beloved animal was failing you know you've never seen really this from miss ran you've never seen such a private intimate moment so that's why i think it's really unusual and hopefully very it was very meaningful to me to do and people i think to read and enjoy yeah absolutely i mean it sounds like it's a perspective they'll get on i'm manned and i'll let it pick up but also on i think their own relationship with their own pets that is going to be unique and be enhanced by by kind of their philosophical approach to an experience i think many people share right i mean it fast phase for living on earth and enjoying i think getting the most out of all of your values and um you know part of what i think in a weird way you miss ran probably didn't know that term Easter eggs you know hiding something in a piece of art you know that people find later as a Easter egg but perfection your own has so many references to cats that i couldn't add that i could really i've never noticed i you know i don't know if i i read i feel a little weird reading miss rance work like i'm you know but you know the fountain head work was there on a davenport in the corner half lying sprawled limply like a kitten it had often astonished keating he had seen work moving with a soundless tension that control the precision of a cat he had not seen him relax like a cat in a shapeless state shapeless ease as if his body held no single solid bone that's beautifully written yep so much of that um you know cats don't relax except with people they like he relaxes like a cat also from the fountain head she uses cat as a metaphor in a very i think very intimate touching beautiful way and i i i was able to draw on there's so much great litter i ran material out there you're wrong versus when i i mean of course you know i mean our i hope our audience knows i delved quite extensively into 100 voices facets of iron rand letters of iron rand um which are you know three parts of the purpose you should definitely avail yourself to facets of iron rand especially for me is again uh these are all kind of memories of miss rand personally that most people don't know about i also was able to talk to harry bins wanger about this he shares a few memories of miss rand when he knew her that have never been published before and never been seen before is uh harry bins wanger on the floor with my dog frisco which uh he is a dog lover and you know when i saw that too i know okay i know objectivists certainly can love a dog we frisco went and visited harry a number of years ago so you're looking at a dog harry on the floor with 140 pound saint bernard um and he tells a story in the book your own about he named his cat elissa and um miss rand i'm quoting now from harry continue to stroke elissa's head and spoke to her hello miss rand frank seated next to her immediately said she can't be miss rand she doesn't have claws that was typical of frank's wit which she relished interesting little fun stories about him one more i'll share too if that's alright is morris the cat now you probably never know who morris the cat is no never knew it i mean maybe you knew it was like revka the cat is that possible i don't know cats okay morris the cat was the nine lives spokes cat for decades the nine lives cat food and i'm gonna quickly share the commercial you can hear it morris had a an attitude nine lives presents morris ready for a boat ride morris i wouldn't trust that thing in the bathtub we'll eat on board uh-uh sinking ships affect my appetite oh don't be finicky i brought nine lives i can't let her sail that thing alone tuna and chicken or seafood platter nine lives seafood platter anchors away nine lives nutritious so morris was the cat he was this you know had this attitude and the book uh the book has the story of morris was her uh her hero this is a memory from susan ludell was a friend of miss rance and talks about how uh she even bought a book on morris his autobiography had come out and of course we found the actual book we have it included in our book and uh you know again we're seeing miss you know a side of miss ran that we've really never seen before you know her her love of a fiction tv cat in fact she was her policy not to accept gifts but in the letters of iron ran there's a letter where she's talks about dear flow thank you for the most thrilling present of a stuffed animal resembling morris the cat i have received in many many christmases as you know it is my principle not to accept presents but a superior value such as morris takes precedence over lesser issues thanks again it's just so charming and that's absolutely yeah you know again it's such a fun part of her personality that we're seeing and as i said the never before photos published with dr picoff miss ran and mr o'connor and have to as i said appreciate the archives for this it is the most amazing comprehensive they really do a huge service to us as students of iron ran by keeping all this material keeping it safe documenting it because of your support of the iron ran institute and um we were able to actually your own to participate in some of that archival process through the book in a photo of the dog what was the dog's name dammit dammit miss ran mr o'connor and his brother joe visiting lake arrowhead huh dammit wow 1927 and we actually did research to find out exactly who to discover that was frank's brother and which brother was that frank frank had a few brothers okay so we are able to print these photos for the first time and again you see miss ran as a as a young girl she's what uh 24 there 23 enjoy us embrace just beautiful beautiful moments dr picoff was in a million involved in the whole process your own you you've told the story about steve jobs yelling at it as an employee yep uh something effective you know wouldn't you love to have been yelled at by steve jobs the story yes absolutely absolutely i i you know most because people people complained about steve jobs yelled at them and the idea is most people have great meaningless bosses who you know would you wouldn't you love to have a boss like steve jobs the once in a while yells at you but is a genius is a is a is a changer of the world and the rather than a gray boring middle of the world nothing but yes it's it's it not everybody appreciates uh the the you know the the the the the the the opportunity to interact with real genius and if you made better because of it i mean yep absolutely really intimately involved in this he made so much better on every level including design and layout not to mention organization so oftentimes i wouldn't say we would clash but you know we work fairly closely that you know we work closely together so we would disagree on certain things and well i was reminded of your point about how uh what about you know that once in a while that's good yeah to be to be able to be set straight by dr peacock um people assume you can love a dog i mean you know the the video we have the video you just watched as i don't know maybe 10 000 views already on youtube but look some of the the comments are you know stupid question what the actual f how can this question deserves or how does this even deserve a response you know i can't believe but dr peacock unpacks it in such a thoughtful way um with such grace and care that it's really unlike anything these people have ever yeah and those kind of attitudes uh you know it shows kind of an anti-intellectual attitude right it shows a superficial anti-intellectuality don't ask questions just do right just act you know there's you know that's thoughtfulness about how miss ran i think you know it's often written about how she was a value or she had favorites of of things and and passion favorites and the fact that dr peacock is so um thoughtful about this issue i think is is going to be a real treat for people and i'll just say that the book ends with a poem which was found among miss ran's artifacts and it was never known that she owned this poem but it was a clipping among her artifacts i'm not going to share the name of the poem or the poem so that's a little tease as they say by the book we end we ended with her a poem that she apparently saved um and so quick thanks all the people in your screen especially as they said the iran archives and and all the individuals have mentioned they were a big part of it and uh and uh definitely i think value that's great so go to amazon by the book guys um it's available on amazon you can get a hot copy hot copy which is probably the way to go with the book like this i don't really see i mean kindle is nice but if you're going to have photos and you can have yeah it's you know i i mean and you know Leonard i'll just say it was really insistent and i'm glad he was on a hard copy book yeah this is you know a nice coffee table style exactly the great stuff you know i wouldn't say it's a stocking stuffer for 2023 but certainly 2024 um buy it now before inflation can use to raise prices and of course this is not your first book that has material for my brand yes yes we also worked on a new textbook of americanism um you know now what six years ago now it's back here somewhere who are part of i should have taken it out but it's there i think that's i'll just say briefly i mean it's part of what i love about this too is you know people think they know i ran oh i have no i ran i right and everyone who says they read alice i don't maybe five percent actually did but even if you did there's so much more about her life and her history and her interest in her intellect to discover you know so you you know it's significant as loving an animal so that's part of what hopefully this this new project is about good all right um we've got a few questions uh you guys can ask more questions about anything you would like about pets about working with Leonard about um i'm tempted to say finance but maybe your relationship with relationship with their pets i mean you know well maybe yeah share some stories about your relationship with pets i know some some of you have here already that's a good idea yeah so so feel free um let's see that's so jennifer uh jonathan people can have close relationship with lots of different types of animals but do you think dogs are the animal most adapted to living among humans well lennard actually specifies dogs and cats in you know went in his original podcast answer he specified dogs and cats so i don't believe i'm not speaking for dr peakoff but i don't believe he would apply the same ideas in this to loving a uh snake or loving a rabbit i don't think my perspective is they're on the same capacity as a higher animal one that's bred for human companionship like a cat or like a dog so um do i think what is it what is it that makes them compatible with you know compatible with full companionship what what are the characteristics that a cat and a dog has that didn't make that possible well you know i'm speaking a little bit out of my area of expertise now but you know i think um they've been bred over the year over many years for that and again kind of paraphrasing of the book you're on i think it's their ability to share specific values with the human with their human caretaker um you know you later writes in the book that your dog doesn't doesn't just like you as your food provider it likes you for who you are in a very unique way and it's the same reason why you know when you have a love for a pet it's a love that develops over time there's a shared relationship over time Leonard talks about dancing with his dog he has a process where he would put on jazz music and he would tap his feet in a certain way and he he would come and put her feet on top of his feet and they would dance and so you know there's there's elements that you build with your love canine loved one certainly canine in my case that um you know make it real shared values that would be my take what do you think the visit you know there's some kind of psychological visibility does lennon talk about that what what what that is well i mean he quotes miss rand's comment that pets miss rand's comment was pets are a substitute friend substitute friend is the way she described a pet and you know Leonard talks about in the book that there's times when he was lonely and he didn't have friends or he didn't have friends around a pet certainly you know so if what i hear you alluding to is yeah i think there's just absolutely an element of being seen by an animal being dependent on by an animal having relationships and routines with an animal that you know can serve a big value and certainly has in dr. peacock's case my case and so many others yeah i mean it seemed to project back emotions in some way it's interesting so funny so funny is your you know you didn't grow up with and i think that's a that's a big part of it as well so it's you know there's an older generation i'm not you but i think you're probably parents and mom you know that the dogs were something that were outside that's they were in like the yard or the barn yeah right yep you didn't let him in your bed sleeping next to you heaving yeah no no well you know you're in you're in far with the pope then you know the pope has talked numerous times about you think it's a he thinks it's terrible that young people are now just getting dogs and spending and traveling and not having children so the pope you know someone should buy this on the pope and show me for the pope tell me you can really love a dog yeah i mean he has bigger bigger issues right people are not having kids and that worries him because he is a concern for the human race right he has this collectivistic well this is much more about personal values yeah and i think that's a it's a great point too is you know you choose this it's not something in liners very specific as i said about loving a particular animal it's so true i mean when i pick up someone else's dog's poop your own i say my dog is poop you know it's so do you now have a dog i do i now bailey is mentioned in the book i have a new dog from seven now mardin who is um i also obviously a very strong very close connection with and i'll share this one often throughout the process i would send photos of mardin and myself to your to uh to dr peacock and i don't think i'm speaking of turn here when i said after a while he asked me not to because i think it was making him kind of sad yeah yeah and so of course you know quickly obliged what kind of dog is mardin mardin is a saipernard bernie's mount dog so she's 125 pounds wow okay but you know also a lot of personal choices as well you know she she has preferences she lets you know and you know she she does have a way of communicating you know dr peacock writes in the book about how kiki want he wanted something she would come to him and show him demonstrate to you miss mardin has very much the same thing so you develop a language with your dog that only the two of you know but it's more than just you know dinner or something like that it's it's very meaningful right dave dave a hundred dollars thank you dave really appreciate that um says in regards to government protection of animals objectivism says there is none however if i sell you a dog there is an implicit contract that you won't harm the dog or it's offsprings if you do you violate the contract and the government should have the right to remove the animal i don't know why there would be such an implicit contract i mean you could make it explicit i guess that lennard dr peacock tackles that question in the book um you know one of the things he mentioned in the uh in his in the book is that if you saw a person abusing a dog and you stepped in and even you if you violated their rights you took the dog away you know the dog's property took away what would stop that man from you know doing it in in the future he and miss ran were asked isn't there anything government can do to protect animals animal rights in that sense animals are being abused he he tells the story of her wishing in effect there was something that government could do but not in a properly moral society besides shun the individual blacklist them and dr peacock gets it into that into the book as well so it is part of that moral and political issues as well good good well thank you dave all right steven um what do you make of a particularly small dog in regards to epistemology an intro to objective epistemology is mentioned in animals on the perceptual level but dogs seem to be able to conceptualize some things no well at one point in here dog Leonard says well yes I believe so although I think Leonard also writes about that being instinctual so there is I don't want to kind of give away too much and I want to misquote him but he talks about exactly that how you know it can be very easy for us to personify in animals oh kiki feels this kiki feels that so to humanize them he talks about kind of how he distinguishes that and exactly this very issue of um you know can they think conceptually on what level about what issues do they have preferences um so it's in the book as they say and it's it's a very thoughtful presentation about this very issue steven go go to amazon get the book you'll you can share and he writes a lot of this you know sharing particular values with the dog and the dog has a concept of what it wants to do he wants to do this it doesn't want to do that he wants to pursue this value over this choice so there's a lot I certainly have no views on that I mean there's something they seem to be able to conceptualize just like they seem to be making choices but and that's part of the appeal is that they seem to have that but do they really um I don't think so and but I also don't I don't know I don't have enough experience to know he talks about so oftentimes um when I often have he talks about you know in many ways he thinks of a dog like his child and I think that's oftentimes too it's like a two-year-old child who is pre- conceptual but some signs and elements of that and um you know and I always even growing up always thought of a decade dog is like 65 percent of a child not a whole thing it's yeah of that two-year-old and there's no real free will and there's no real concepts there but there's something that that seems to come close and that that mimics it and gives the impression of it at least that's my sense yeah and he talks about that question of can you get angry at a dog because if your dog sees something and runs out into the street it's not making a choice to do that it's just it sees it and wants to run so how could you have done that you know fight out what were you thinking and what you know there's that interesting dichotomy there of it's looking at some level it knows but it is an animal you know see Siegfried and Roy you know yeah that's right alright Willis says that story about Rand and the vet is is so touching i had to go through a very similar experience donate you on your show is not supposed to make me cry it's not i i didn't know that i i mean i thought i usually make you cry for other reasons you know this time i think it's kind of a different kind of crying but maybe maybe a more more benevolent with the you know form of crying the vet recalls that mr O'Connor and miss Rand always came together they always travel with the cat together it was really like their child and you know this memory in this story that's told of her cat Frisco final couple of days and there was a couple of anecdotes um you know later in the book that we couldn't even include about later in life as miss Rand you know had options to get new cats and you know she didn't get any subsequent cats but um you know people will really be able to relate because if you've had an animal you've probably had to put it down at some point you know miss Rand's experience of that is uh recalled in the book and uh quite meaningful and quite beautiful ultimately quite sad alright will uh Willis says uh tons of cute cat dog stickers but only one plain kitty sticker I have a super chat have a super chat instead okay thank you Willa really appreciate that um that will lead to stickers uh which you can do in order to support the show we have two questions left so if you guys would like to ask a question now's the time to do it uh let's see any guess why or thoughts on people who upon learning that my preferred house pets are bunnies joke about hasn't prefer and brag that they eat rabbit well I don't you know I don't believe personally I'm stepping off the reservation or the I don't believe you can love a bunny first of all I can't cuddle a bunny just saying there's no way you can cuddle a bunny and you know I don't know this something this has to be some turn about being racist towards some form some animals and it you know discriminating against others maybe maybe maybe it's a big bunny maybe you can cuddle the bunny well certainly on his lap and and and Leonard does not feel the way about cats as he does about dogs no he doesn't no and miss ran I think it's pretty safe to say did not value dogs anywhere like she you know part of what I saw your own was throughout miss ran's uh collection of personal artifacts there's dozens and dozens of cat pins and yeah you know interesting little thing she collected and cat articles so you know she really had an interest in passion just the same way I know I subscribe on Facebook to like half a dozen um St. Bernard and St. Bernese Facebook pages so always seeing interesting you know imagine this right what is a real interest of her so um part of what you see is that really touching in and you know bunnies kind of like a goldfish right I mean basically it's like a I don't know Robert says rabbits are comparable to cats including cleanliness, litter training but bunnies are smaller and cuter uh well uh I mean he's got the first-hand experience I can't I have no I have no experience at that but you know I think that's and I have no idea who has some prefer and brag or and I don't know you know they're not the ones who eat rabbits so yeah go ahead yeah well you didn't know Morris the cat either you know it's no I don't know anything what do I know yeah one of the stories that um Dr Benzlinger talks about in the book is he and Miss Ram in the early 70s watching a television show called Big Cats Little Cats which is an hour long ABC special all about cats okay he profiled a carol Baskin style woman who lived in the country with apparently you know 50 cats or whatever like that and Harry recalls Miss Fran saying to him when they watched it I'm glad I'm not in I'm in the city not in the country because I would be doing exactly the same thing meaning Miss Rand would have all those cats so because I know I felt like I'd love to live on a big farm with a dozen dogs and you know it's a it's a very you know charming fantasy that many of us animal lovers have had I you know my my my favorite cats are lions and tigers I love I love I love watching them at the zoo or on safari or something amazing amazing animals I mean can't cuddle them I'm just throwing that out there you're not interested in cuddling an animal so have a wait for it um you know it you know slender talks about no you you can have a relationship with them so obviously I mean uh yeah it's it's it's it's something uh it's not a good friend yep I just like I just like watching them watching the move but you know the big cats they have so much power in uh Betsy Gale says I always felt guilty leaving my well-spring alone should I have well it's one of the things Dr. Peacoff talks about as if you cannot be there for your cat and he specifies it you know in terms of hours a day etc he you know and he was very serious even in our discussions about that and you know even if his podcast talked about it in terms of almost being equivalent to our calls being like jailing that you know really is in solitary confinement for hour after hour after hour with he would he would go out and leave his leave his dog I mean it wasn't like he had his dog with him all the time uh he uh he often had to rush home because because he left kiki or coal for too long but um but it's not like you're chained to it I don't I don't know that you should feel guilty exactly but you are responsible yeah no I mean I think of course as you said you know it's it's not chained to them but you know giving them some psychological stimulus they're not just kind of uh pieces of you know the law treats them and I think it's safe to say objectivism would treat them as property right their property but they're leaving I believe um conceptualizing on some level I don't know if that's not true to say that but I they're they're substitute friends can't leave it for 18 hours and let it defecate in the corner just because I you know want to go see a Broadway show and and that's why you know a part of what you're going to you're not going to stop going to see a Broadway show of course but you may because you have a dog you're just going to find the right context in which the dog can be without you for that period of time one of the things I write in the introduction is you know the spending on dogs keeps going up and the you know you can get any type of dog food delivered overnight so you can get you know my dog gets hydroponic therapy it runs on a treadmill underwater building up its house yeah I mean you can spoil them and um you know you wrote uh Leonard told me privately as well but when it when Kiki was dying he said to the vet you know can I fly her anywhere in a private jet when you know what what will it take yeah yeah after similar miss you know it's look this dog is old and we cannot yeah and it's it's it is amazing how much you know as we've gotten wealthier we have more time for pets but we also have more resources to be able to spoil them and and people do that I mean the amount of money being spent on pets is unbelievable and the medical treatment for pets is gone through the roof in terms of its you know its sophistication all the procedures that you you do in human beings you can do you know being done now in pets from genetic engineering or you know to surgery to complex surgery uh it it really is it it's a whole industry and it's an industry that's growing and in many respects because it's not regulated like human medicine is it's free uh there's more innovation there but Dr. Pickoff in the book answers he's asked on uh kind of the trolley question about if a man was driving uh drowning you didn't know and your dog was drowning you could only save one who would you save yeah spoil his answer but his final line is how it's an insult that this question is even asked read his answer to find out what it is specifically but he's very passionate about that and who he would save if his dog was drowning or another man you know yeah yeah um no let's see Catherine uh thank you for the sticker gale thank you for the sticker uh let's see David his first super chat thank you David really appreciate it and Carolina from Mexico thank you Carolina let's see Steven asks when I was a kid my aunt and uncle had a dog that would get the male right on a jet ski with my cousins and took our luggage from us when we arrived they're definitely on some higher plane mentally yeah it is it is tremendous that you can teach them you know to be such important parts of your life and we've all seen someone worth a helping what do they call a hearing a service dog yeah for the blind and they're such invaluable parts of people's lives emotionally and I mean I know there's they could be trained by the police and the military to do amazing things um and uh and uh in that sense they are smart that is they can they can learn a skill and perform it in a way that I don't even think cats can with my experience maybe I'm necessarily wrong about that but um yeah there's something so meaningful about that when you and I know you're on for my own experience you connect with a dog in a weird way that you both have expectations and they're both fulfilled at the same for a mutually beneficial purpose you're both working together because you like the process and you like the result so yeah something very um exciting and about sharing a good relationship but it takes time to build that to train it and to you we've all had that experience and you know a lot of people don't like dogs because as a kid they were like a dog jumped up on them or scared them or bit them or something like that so part of the idea is if you can't train a dog I believe that you can't it's not in the book but if you can't make sure that it's socialized you know you're really not doing yourself or in any long-term service yeah so with us as some fighting woods about some animals being cuter than cats in this chat seems the YBS chat is always prone to conflict absolutely we have a we have a feisty group here in the YBS chat and that and and disagreements among objectivists this is good i i like it we you know we're not supposed to agree on everything uh i think that's part of what's interesting you know miss ran value cats dr. peacock value dogs and so we give us value pets as you know important and valuable parts of our lives some of us don't and that's okay it really isn't about individual values and it really is about the context of your own life and your own values there's no formula that about how to live your life in terms of the particular uh concrete just because you're an objectivist it's not in the book but you remember your own i believe you were in the state at this time leona helmsley was the queen of mean oh yeah she left all the money to a cat a dog dog dog yeah that's right and there was such out roar about the time of how can a woman leave a dog 25 million dollars or something like that but dr. peacock in the book and in his podcast talks about making financial arrangements for his dog even sweetening the bill basically paying the caretaker something so no i i remember having those discussions with him absolutely you know he he'd be very much cared for for for for his dog and he was worried that he would die first and that that uh he wanted to make sure that the kiki was taking care of no matter what right or the pope's about you know well you're not leaving it to the children you're not leaving it to the church you're leaving it to a dog like come not even people roll their eyes like oh the dog her dog leona the dog's name was trouble as i recall by the way which is okay okay it says says animals other than humans have some way to reason and articulate value how does objectives and account for sentinette the sentience or rights of animals i mean i don't think it's right to say that animals can reason um they are they are beings that are in a sense pre-programmed they can observe their reality and they can function within their reality at the perceptual level but i don't you know i don't think although maybe some animals can achieve certain simple concepts maybe maybe chimpanzees or certain monkeys maybe dogs but then it doesn't elevate to the to the to the level of reason of you know actually forming concepts you know actually integrating knowledge i don't think what they have is is knowledge it it stays at the perceptual level so objectivism i don't think views animals as having reason and as a consequence of that as a consequence of objective isn't doesn't hold that they have rights this is the point i think jonathan made earlier is that rain wishes she could find a way to protect animals in terms of the in terms of from harm but but you really can't there is no way there is no way to do it dogs and cats are ultimately property of the of the owner and if they abuse the their pet then you can certainly make a model you know you can condemn them morally but but there's no legal recourse that you can actually i mean there's some cultures eat the animals that we we view as pets so well in part three the whole part three is animal rights and you know we put animal rights and quotes you know dr yeah quotes and he goes through exactly what this questioner is asking he says what would it mean if animals had life liberty that the right to life liberty and property and he says you know liberty for example suppose your beloved dog this likes leashes and wants to go for a walk without one what can you do you can't force him to comply with your desire because he's free so how and where he walks is up to him whether he chooses to go left when you turn right across the street into i'm coming tracking you know dogs got liberty it's got rights he can do what he wants so he goes through all these issues very systematically about why animals don't have rights even if they are sentient as the questioner mentions and but that's always such an interesting juxtaposition about the object of this Dr. Peacock's experiences no one loves dogs more than him but no one also probably thinks that dogs don't have rights as much as him most people who love animals are the earth first types ecology movement type oh i mean i think a lot of people love animals but they i mean to have such an intellectual approach to it and to understand it within the context full context of human life and in that context have a view about them and rights that that is unusual that's very rare i think only an object to us could have that only an objective philosopher could really do that Jennifer says i think part of the reason people love animals is that they can't deceive you that the animal can't deceive you interesting i mean yeah i mean i've certainly had that experience of not an animal necessarily deceiving me but there is a child like i know innocence to especially my dogs are big dogs you know with heads that are as big as human heads where you really get a sense of you seeing some wheels clicking in there and um it's a it's a real intimate uh you know experience to have that honesty as as was mentioned from an animal from a dog yeah it there always you get there's no lying there's no deception there's you get exactly what i mean what they're expecting is real that there's nothing else when you deceive them i believe they remember and they learn okay they don't believe you anymore after you deceive them for enough time okay so yeah i mean you have to model good behavior just like you do with a child james asks how does he get an autographed version of the book well if you come to okon which i hope our listeners will be coming to okon i'll certainly be signing them there if you want to buy it and send it to me i'd be happy to uh to uh to to sign it for you and you know if you're in chicago find me and little we'll do it there but uh oh i mean dr pikoff oh excuse me sorry about that i don't know is that what he said do you want dr pikoff to sign it still we want dr pikoff to sign it i think that's probably going to be difficult but if i see you i'd be happy to sign it more than anything get it read it enjoy it and savor it it's unlike anything in the ejectivist canon and it's it's so um it's so light but so important at the same time and i think you know just like textbook of americanism for me was as a little piece of i'm randid dr pikoff that is very memorable and important and maybe for okon you can get lend it to sign a few copies and you can bring them up to okon and uh have them there with you that would be tremendous yeah i mean he's he's very proud of it and uh i know our our viewers and our listeners will enjoy it quite a bit yeah good so uh uh james another reason to come to okon okay frank says what's your favorite movie with a dog lassie benji john wick also do you like longhead or short-haired dogs i love the sheepdog or retriever one of the things lennard talks about in the well he didn't talk about on his podcast it didn't make it into the book but as a fiction reader he would talk about buying 10 fiction books often you had to use bookstore yeah yeah remember those days yeah start reading them and he'd say often when he introduced a dog he'd put it down because he knew that the only reason they're gonna bring a dog in is that the dog is ultimately gonna die and he didn't want to see that happen i don't i can't say i have a favorite i mean there's been so many well-known dogs over the years benji lassie marmaduke huckleberry hound i mean there's many celebrity dogs over the years but um i don't have a favorite but i i share a letter to that you know when you see like in the never-ending story or what not a dog die you know even in the fox in the hound which i watched as a child which is a digital yeah yeah you see that animal die it is really very painful yeah it's a famous weston god i can't remember what its name with the dog you know i can't remember but i you know i enjoyed lassie lassie was a those were fun movies when i was a kid i don't think anybody watches them anymore but those are those are pretty old movies but um right well to some extent i mean seeing a trained dog like that has been replaced by tens of thousands of hours yellow balani says old yellow that's right old yellow that was that's a powerful movie that's that and old yellow i think he dies doesn't he die at the end didn't see it but i was feeling probably that's a good movie it's a good movie i know yeah the boy has to put it down himself that's right it's a it's very powerful very powerful yeah um james says he meant you your signature so so there you go i'd be happy to sign it we'll meet me at octon and we'll we'll sign in and we'll swap pictures of our animals and if not you know if i you can mail it to jonathan haney i'll sign it my dog by the way my dog uh bailey came to the octon in cleveland bailey was okay maybe maybe maudin will make an appearance as well i saw bailey at your apartment once years ago yeah i remember that i don't know if i saw him again what's that i was gonna i was joking i was saying you were like get this dog out of here no but he was huge god is that a was that a big dog i mean it was a big dog uh very impressive a real presence right dog with charisma yeah steven says old yellow yeah we read that all right so uh what's next jonathan what's the next project well i have to just say frank i think donated asked what about the long-haired or short-haired dog yeah oh yeah that's right that's right you know for me my preference i don't like dog with hair that resembles uh pubic hair or payas for that matter you know there's kind of short greasy curly hair i don't like so doodles i'm not a fan yeah uh but i like i don't know more like fur type hair but you know different strokes and yep that it's uh they all can be deserving of love if you have that relationship and so this is certainly what i'm going to be focusing on now your own for quite some time i think there's a lot there uh to to promote it's can you really love a dog good you know it's something that i don't think Leonard think he thought he would be publishing a new book although i was able to mention to him throughout this process that he's the only 90 year old i think who's working on a new movie and a new book uh new movie well when i was speaking with him he was in the process of working on the atlas deal with that's right not sure what's come of that but yeah yeah um he was and who knows there might be might be more books in his future we'll see he's still still he's a young 90 absolutely he's an amazing 90 and so thank you for you for letting me talk about it and obviously Dr. Peacock for working on what i think our listeners will find to be a really benevolent and meaningful project no i think i think he very much enjoyed it and uh it was it was a nice i think for him it was kind of a tribute to kiki i think he he enjoyed doing it as a tribute to uh to his dog all right jonathan thank you oops we got another one james just came in all right have you traveled with your pets did you do any road trips with pets as a kid do you recommend kids play with animals have you considered buying pet companies or investing in companies that work with animals have you being to an animal sanctuary it's a lot of questions all right so travel travel with pets tell us about travel with pets i have um i went to cal went when dr binzlinger met he uh met uh bailey i had driven from chicago to to florida and it took basically an extra day than it would because traveling with a pet you know you have to stop just like with a kid to stop to go and it's a stretch of legs so yeah i mean it was um now i've i've really looked into how to fly with a 130 pound saint bernard there's no way to do it they won't even let you buy all the first class and they you cannot buy seats for the dog on american carriers okay that's weird so i guess you could put it in is that is that do they still you know you you would do that but they will ship a dog in storage but yeah that sounds uh sounds terrible all right i do recommend kids play with animals i mean i do i think you know to the extent that they're interested in i think you know it's not something you force but i've seen a lot of adults who had some bad experiences with animals as a kid and they're afraid they're afraid of a dog even a very and oftentimes you're on the irony of these the biggest guys like in my apartment building and there was my dog was you know big dog the biggest guys are the most scared of the dog and the the younger women petite women are oh so um i haven't been to an animal sanctuary oh no i have been an animal sanctuary i was at the everglades you know and saw the crocodiles so that that's where crocodiles belong out there in the bush they want a crocodile pet no no pets that are crocodiles do you see the movie crocodile dundee that's it that's a good movie yeah i can't remember if he does he fight them or a doctor i think he fights them or at least pretends to fights them to impress the goals i can't remember but all i remember is it's a funny movie this is years ago but that was it was a fun it was fun um but like this even more than a shirtless all hogan so it's can you really love a dog and something new for objectivism and there you go one is a pushed it forward i know from my estimation more than you have so as i said so have you considered buying pet companies or investing in companies that work with animals that's part of that question well there's actually now this is not a recommendation at all but there's actually an ETF for that oh not investment advice guys not at all but um you know look it up it's they have such great tickers don't they your own pause that's the aws yeah awz oh okay awz yeah pause aws might have been taken already yeah has um a bunch of you know chewy and fresh pets and so it has a bunch of animal related makes sense interesting uh interesting way to not investment advice but yeah if you want to invest in those companies there's a lot of them to choose from all right james asks why does you run hate pets have you been to an animal shelter pet store i don't hate pets i just don't want pets um i have been i've never been to an animal shelter i've been to pet store um i've interacted with other people's pets i have no problem with other people's pets um i just don't find it worthwhile the effort and time the energy the all of that it just doesn't doesn't seem that important to me that's how i feel about children yeah and that's how he feels about children i love babies i mean grand kids i'm i'm all in favor of grand kids uh my my my i'm not getting any bit but but you know for now but uh you know children i love but pets just don't i don't get any i don't get enough in return to justify the effort steven asks what do you make of someone like whoops what happened there someone like crocodile hunter steve owin who is passionate about all animals not just pets i mean he was was that his profession i mean that was that was his kind of career i mean that's that was his interest in life yeah you know i mean i'm i'm reading too much into uh steven's question but you know that i think is a lot of exemplified by this kind of earth first idea whereas animal life is a value to them all animals are a value and they're interested in all of them regardless and i am not and as much of a dog lover as i am like i couldn't care less about the spotted owl and you know the dodo bird or you know i just so you know pets are you know what things are a value or value to someone and for specific purpose so i am certainly not like steve owin or uh who's the the british guy who's always the loving animals uh richard ottenborough or not i don't love animals i love specific animals my pets who live a very gilded life in my penthouse partner i love to see animals from the comfort of whatever so i i really enjoyed i went to safari once no twice uh anyway i've been a safari loved seeing the elephants in the juafs and the baby and i would have loved to have seen i don't think i saw a lion but i i like lions as i said and tigers um i've been safaris i've been to many zoos um and animal parks and things like that yeah i mean i i like animals but it's not the same as i don't have a relationship with animals i just like watching animals they're kind of interesting and fun to watch it's a completely different experience than than i think having a pet which is a personal experience uh with a particular uh animal the response to you and you respond to it uh my interest in animals is the same as my interest in beautiful scenery i love mountains right but it's not that's not a personal relationship with mountains yeah yeah they're right great this is funny uh willow says how much would it cost for you on to review owning a pet many thousands of dollars i i think i i'm not sure i'm not sure there's a price but but it's uh you know maybe if i could hire somebody to take it out for the walks and all of that stuff and i'll just say even if you don't love pets it makes a great gift for those who do an affordable gift of what there are many many and uh if you buy now in some cities you can probably still get up before christmas because i know that like in la and some other places amazon is like you can get a next day or in some some stuff from amazon you can get same day but probably not a book a book is probably next day but um uh yeah all right you've got it you've got an investment question a finance question uh john boz asks this question of everybody who i interviewed a variation of this what should take on musk on bitcoin and on the border crisis uh he hasn't he's not asking you about how he should handle his 18 month old because you've already expressed your distate for babies so he's not asking any questions about that because you ask that usually of everybody as well so musk bitcoin and border crisis oh ai also ai you've got to do ai as well musk has been very discoining to me there was a transition at some point where i think he went from being very focused to very very whim oriented you know i first discovered musk he was the guy who was like sleeping on the floor totally focused on getting the car out and fixing it and you know and then now you know eight nine years later he's the one who's tweeting all day long and responding to people and fraternizing with mike cernovich and all these lowlife right-wingers so and then not to mention his anti-semitic uh the comments on twitter and you know just to me it's it reads as someone who's very whim worshiping and um you know i've been very disappointed in him i appreciate his innovations uh but i'm very disappointed in him personally as well bitcoin uh you know i i owned uh some at some point i don't own any now and i i harken back to the advice of gordon gecko who said don't get emotional about stock i don't get emotional about bitcoin either i think it can go higher but where most people in my experience your own go wrong is they make investing in all our non decision they're either balls to the wall all in or avoid it and have the shit talk it all the time so you know if you want a five percent position or a ten percent position you know i think that's pretty generous um but trends tend to persist and new highs for the year oftentimes beget more new highs later in the yep um ai i am i'm pro ai you know i remember your own when the internet first came around whenever people were very hesitant to put their credit card number on the internet yeah i want my credit card to have around is always a new fear with new technology always you've talked about this on the show uh extensively and there's new jobs that are going to be created thanks in my opinion thanks to ai that we can't even imagine yet just the same way that you know in the in the 80s you would have been a web designer a video game designer what i'm like what industry there's whole new industries that are going to be created because of this new technology and you know and it's all been pioneered in silicon valley and in america not in the middle east x israel not in these places that are repressive not in russia you know so you know thanks to that american innovation and sense of discovery and values and capitalism these new technologies i think are going to make our lives tremendously better so i welcome it and finally border crisis uh you know border crisis i i'm frustrated by the situation at the border i have read and really advocate for dr benz wanger's conception of an open border um in conjunction with an elimination of the welfare state i always wished that the right that republicans had used the elimination of the welfare state as a means of achieving the border policies that many on the left had wanted yep but um you know so when i hear some of the rhetoric coming from former president donald trump about immigrants you know bringing vermin or as vermin and bringing poison or poisoning the blood of america it makes me very angry and very against anyone who would put him back in office james asked how do you not see the value in children jonathan also you run a pet loves you unconditionally is that not a value you know that i don't want to be loved unconditionally i want to be loved conditionally but i don't know if a pet loves you unconditionally i'm uncertain if you treat it poorly it's not going to i think that's right yeah well yeah it's not it's not um and you know i mean i don't want to get two in the you know golden thing i mean it's it's it's it's children have never been a value to me and probably you're all not unlike you with pets like i enjoy going to people's houses and playing with their kids but i'm happy to come home and not have those kids asking for money taking the car ruining my shit you know getting into my stuff crying so it's it's different values and uh each and all right re says i have been fostering kittens for 30 years bottle feeding and raising them to be people friendly the payoff for me is when they bring joy to a child that when they are adopted man that sounds wonderful yeah i mean i'll just say it having a big dog i can relate to that because you know you're walking on the street people stop you and i delight with everything from some people like harry got down on the ground like i literally wanted to obey you but people stopped in delight on some level of meeting this incredible big creature so it's fun for me to be able to share that with others and uh and so i relate to what she's saying and i have the same experience so james asks why are you still in chicago did you consider living in dallas new york city or other hubs what is the best financial center besides new york city or chicago well i'll just say i mean chicago is really disappointed me i mean your own i i shared some photos on my twitter from the george floyd riot what is that more than two years ago now you know it is my opinion the city has not come back yet at all there's been i don't know a dozen shootings on my street in the last two three years and uh you know i'm very worried about the direction of chicago which is a magnificent financial hub but you know once the mercantile exchange leaves thanks to transact financial transaction tax or whatever they want to do you know they've already experimented with the universal income uh here for low income you know universal income so yeah i do it's it's you always see you don't know what's the difference between hibana cuba and miami it's just the ideas you know one is this hugely successful metropolis and one is a you know poor so if bad ideas infiltrate chicago continue to i don't know how i'm gonna be able to stay what what's the best financial center beside new york city of chicago you you would know that more than i would you're on you travel to these you know major financial centers i'm sure much more than i do you have an opinion on that can't say i do yeah i mean i would say in the u.s it's probably charlotte north carolina i mean funnily enough you wouldn't expect that but that's for a variety of historical reasons a bank of americas had coordinated charlotte as this was fogo you know or was fogo is still in san francisco but it's second basis north carolina is a big banking hub for again a variety of regulatory reasons that go back to the 1970s and 80s san francisco but that's about it in terms of finance centers you know dallas to some extent may be in private equity coming one more for latin america kind of uh transactions to your point you're on i remember growing up when north carolina was becoming that in the seven even into the 90s and how you know one little regulation can hurt an entire community over decades and decades and decades because the employers the businesses pack up and go somewhere else yeah i mean in north carolina in a sense created opportunities for its banks to grow out of state before anybody else did so you had north carolina uh ncdnb north carolina state bank uh that then became nations bank that then became bank of america bought bank of america in san francisco and it became one of the largest banks in the in the country it's bank of america now i think it's a fourth largest or third largest and then you had wakovia which of course was a was a a huge bank dominated to southeast and it was bought by walsh fogo uh and became part of walsh fogo uh but is in baston in charlotte and then you got bbt that's not a charlotte but not far from charlotte which is another top 10 15 bank in the united states um that was of course taken from a farming bank uh by uh you know turned into a one of the one of the great banks of the united states by by john allison who we both know so north carolina has this banking tradition um if you look globally of course you've got you've got london probably got frankford frankford has probably become the the finance center of um europe now that there's no now that brexit has happened um and then in asia you've got singapore and hong kong or at least you used to have hong kong i'm not sure you still have hong kong um at toronto is probably a financial center as well so in in america's but that's that's about it that that i'd say those are the centers of finance in the world um i'll just say you know i hate the frankford airport just just i thought i'd remind you guys it's so funny i have to just say you know all the worries about china people so scared about china today china's etf in a new fresh 52 big low even as the american stock market is at 52 big highs you know the more socialists and repressive at a country you know the worst it's economy and the worst it's it's out comes for all of its citizens over and over again yeah i mean china's really struggling and as a consequence of the authoritarian nature of its regime and real estate market is crumbling and real estate developers are struggling but also investment houses and the banks the banks have a lot of bad data on their books and they're basically being bailed out by the government they're real dramatics whatever structural problems in america and we have a lot of them they have them in spades they have multiples of all the problems we have all right mark asks to jonathan thanks for joining the show learning about pets helps me appreciate human human consciousness more may 2024 yield returns for human reason great sentiment mark thank you thank you for supporting the europe rokeshow as well i mean your own is as i said was a guest and a co-host of dr peacock's show and we're lucky to have him like i started so many of our art you know these difficult times so thank you jonathan hi john thank you for the support john just did a sticker i think i'm caught up on stickers all right thank you oh the questions just keep flowing in all right adam says my wife and daughter outvoted me on getting dogs and now they are of huge value to me it helps they don't shed and uh they are way less altruistic and second-handed than most people i know you know i really want this but i don't want to tell you when i'm afraid to hurt your feelings no it it's comes revenue says no i want this something refreshing about that absolutely absolutely i agree i agree i'm so glad and thank you for that support as well that's great adam all right guys thank you thank you jonathan pleasure having you on go get the book guys uh get it for christmas uh if you know people who love pets get it for the people who love pets buy a bunch of them and uh i will see you all tomorrow morning by the way if you speak hebrew those of you listening who speak over boss for example who's on my hebrew show my wants to be two weeks show your on book show in hebrew uh the second episode will be tomorrow so we will be talking about um can and uh can and will will or can israel win the war so it's it's uh it'll be interesting that'll be in hebrew tomorrow at 10 a.m east coast time uh then i think it's one or i think at one o'clock east coast uh we'll be doing the regular uh news show uh tomorrow so um join me tomorrow thanks jonathan see you guys have a great if i don't speak to any of you and i probably won't speak to you jonathan maybe christmas have a fantastic new year thanks for that be well tomorrow bye guys