 So you should all be reading Opa. So let me first say before we, I want to talk more about the spiritual value of productiveness. But you know, one of the things that I've mentioned many times on the show, and I actually get a lot of flack from some objectivists for this, is how much I admire Silicon Valley and how much I admire the people who work in Silicon Valley and the entrepreneurs and the creation. And even people who I, you know, politically, I'm completely opposed to, I don't know, Zuckerberg and most of the CEOs of Silicon Valley. What I admire about these people is their sense of purpose. They have a vision. They have an idea and they dedicate it to that idea. And they work hard and they change the world by focusing, using their mind to achieve that vision that they have, to achieve that purpose that they've set for themselves. And they don't settle. So you don't find, I don't know, Apple saying, okay, we did the personal computer. That's fine. We're done. Right? Steve Jobs had to do an iPhone and then iPad. And then I watch, and even though otherwise he came out after him, and he was trying to solve the problem of television, he would say. And you know, he was always, always trying to solve problems, applying his mind. Constantly, constantly throughout his adulthood to problems that existed in the world. And drove himself, drove himself, worked incredibly hard, put the team together that he drove to work very, very hard in order to solve. So, I mean, the amount of respect I have for people like that is unbelievable. Versus armchair objectivist who sat at home and spent most of their time on Facebook and Twitter complaining about the world, bitching and complaining about the risks and the dangers and oh my God, how bad things are. And using objectivism as an excuse for their own failure in life and in their careers. And then blaming the people in Silicon Valley who actually have a life, have a career, have a purpose, have embraced Iron Rans, core moral virtues implicitly. Complaining about those people because they get their politics wrong. Now, I complain about those people because they get their politics wrong. But first I say, wow. First I say, thank you. And first I say, they are unbelievable moral people. Here's what Dr. Pieckhoff writes in Opal about this, right? Iron Rand is the first thinker to reject the mind-body dichotomy methodologically by reference to a theory of reality and of concepts. We'll get to that at some point, not today. That is why she's also the first fully to practice the virtue of justice in the present context. She is the first to identify in terms of philosophical system, the source of wealth and therefore the proper estimate of those who created. Next paragraph. A productive man is a moral man, period. Let me repeat that. A productive man is a moral man. In a more intellectually demanding and innovating fields, he is the epitome of morality. He deserves to be admired accordingly. I love that paragraph. Let me repeat it, because this so applies to Silicon Valley. A productive man is a moral man. In the more intellectually demanding and innovative fields, he is the epitome of morality. He deserves to be admired accordingly. Wow. And this relates to the idea of love of ability, which I in Rand had, think about all the heroes in her books and think about all the talks to businessmen, the love of ability. And I love the people in Silicon Valley because of the amazing things that they create and they produce. Now, it's not limited to Silicon Valley. I love businessmen all over this country. But what does it say here? Oops, where did I go? The more intellectually demanding and innovative fields, the valley and everything represents is demanding, intellectually demanding. It's taking, cutting its science and turning it into products that make my life and your life and everybody's life better. It doesn't get any better than that. It doesn't get any more admirable than that. Now, yeah, when they do something politically horrible, you have to attack them. You have to condemn them. But within the context of how admirable they are as producers. And if you take that approach, if you take the approach of admiring productive ability, admiring and loving productive ability, loving, admiring, production and people are production and viewing production as moral, productiveness as this key virtue. Then, you know, this applies to immigrants who come here to work, to produce, to create. Yeah, some of them are bums. Some of them come here to leech off the system. Condemn them. But respect the ones who don't. Respect the one who wanna make and create and build and produce, don't start slashing back on immigration when people wanna come to this country because it's still free enough for them to be able to be productive. Right? Now somebody's asking about Elon Musk. Look, Elon Musk, to be a crony, to be in a sense, to base all your production on government favors, that's not productiveness. That's, you know, that's being a crook. That's, and a crook is not productive, right? Now, Elon Musk is this real mixed case and I have a huge love-hate relationship with him. On the one hand, he made his money at PayPal which was real innovation, real production. And he has a vision to going to Mars in 30 years which I think is just astounding for an entrepreneur to have a 30-year vision and to put in place a program to actually achieve that vision, talk about goal-directed action, talk about having a purpose in life. I mean, that's amazing, right? And I don't resent the fact that he gets his money in the space program from government because that's really right now the way the economy structured, the only way to get it. But I resent his solar energy plans. I resent his Tesla plans. It's not just that he take government loan. He gets subsidized heavily, heavily, heavily by all these people, right? So Elon Musk is a very mixed case. He's very difficult to have the right attitude towards and I have a very mixed view of Elon Musk as a consequence. His look life is not simple where you can just say, you know, you just cut and dry, admire, hate, admire, hate, admire, hate. In some mixed cases, I admire and hate Elon Musk, right? Now, we're gonna get to a question Ethan asked in a few minutes. But so let me deal, let's say so, I just wanna make the case that being productive is at the core of what it means to be a model and being successful at production requires that one be successful at least in the realm of production, in the other virtues of objectivism. You're not gonna be successful in your career, in production, if you're not honest, if you don't have integrity, if you don't have a sense of justice in the way you treat your employees, if you don't have pride, think of Steve Jobs, right? And of course, if you're not rational, forget it, right? So achievement and success in productiveness, in the world of production is an indication, at least, that in that realm of life, at least, you have been a model person, you have been honest, you've had integrity, and you have used your mind in what is more important than objectivism than the fact that you have used your mind to better your life, to solve the problems that exist around you, to make life, to make the world a better place. I mean, that's just, so to me, again, the people in Silicon Valley are incredible productive and they're being egoistic about it. I mean, and you watch them, you see them, you see the level of enjoyment, you see the fun they have, you see the excitement they have in bringing out a new product, the fun they have in starting a company and innovating and producing, being serial entrepreneurs, and even after you've made $20 billion, doing it all again and going for more, right? Think of Michael Dell, who's, I don't know, with $20 billion, just risked a huge amount of his wealth and taking his company, Dell, private, and then merging it with EMC, I think it's EMC, with the largest takeover in technology history, right? And trying to create something even bigger than Dell ever was. And maybe in the process of becoming the richest man in the world. But I can tell you, Michael Dell doesn't know what to do with the money he already has. There's no way he can spend it. But why is money important in that place? Because it's a way to measure how successful you are. It's a way to measure how productive you've been. I mean, think of the virtue that that takes, think of the rationality that takes, the drive, the purposefulness that that takes, and the self-esteem. I've made $20 billion, I'm gonna make another. I mean, wow. So I love these guys. I love these people and their politics, you know? If that were the only problem in the world, we could solve it. Everybody was as productive and creative and innovative and purposefulness and rational as people in Silicon Valley. Then we could deal. We could deal with their politics. I'm convinced we can convince them that their politics is wrong. But try to convince people who don't wanna work. Try to convince people who don't use their minds. Try to convince people who drift through life, who don't engage with reality to be moral. That's much harder. That is so much more hard. So anyway, that's, again, my pitch for Silicon Valley, you'll get that a lot from me because nothing ticks me off more than objectivists who condemn and berate the great entrepreneurs of our era and who focus exclusively on politics as if politics is a primary when morality is so much more important.