 Age of enlightenment or the age of reason This is an era in which we discovered something really really really important We rediscovered it if you will you know people people ask me where does Western civilization come from and I know I'm gonna say something Controversial, but it doesn't come from the Judeo-Christian tradition. It comes from Greece Because what we discovered in the 18th century was a principle Aristotle knew way back then and the principle is That we know about the world We discover truth in the world by using what? By using our mind by using reason by thinking thinking thinking by observing figuring stuff out integrating We know it by using our minds the great scientist taught us that of the scientific revolution Where there was Newton or the other scientists of the 18th century and then the philosophers picked up on that and they said yes Human beings what makes us special what makes us different. It's not thumbs It's a stupid anthropological. I don't know who came up with that It's our mind. It's our capacity to reason Think and therefore communicate Plan strategize Anybody here have the gene for hunting? Agriculture we live in agriculture anybody just know how to do it All right, we have one. I'm gonna drop you in the middle of the Amazon and we'll see right No one has it. It's not in our genes. Sorry evolutionary psychologists We're not programmed to any of this stuff. You try running down I don't know. Do you have bison here? What would be a good animal in Brazil to run down, right? We're weak. I mean just look around the audience, right? We're weak. We're slow We have no claws we have no fangs You can't run down an animal and chew on it. What do you have to do? You have to invent weapons Invent traps you have to strategize and work in teams From the beginning our means of survival as human beings has been the mind has been reason has been thinking But what's interesting is in the 18th century they didn't stop there They said okay We all have this capacity to reason now who has this capacity to reason is there a collective consciousness Floating over here in in the space here, and we all think in this collective consciousness place No Just like there's no collective belly and you can't eat for somebody else You have to eat for yourself. There's no collective mind Reason is a faculty of the individual each one of us reasons Well if each one of us can reason and if we can understand the equations of Newton and if we can understand the world in which we live Then why can't we choose our own profession? Which you couldn't 300 years ago. Why can't we choose our own spouse our own wife or husband? You couldn't 300 years ago. Why can't we choose our own? political leaders Which you couldn't 300 years ago suddenly? Suddenly a movement is born a movement of liberty a movement of freedom Not based on the idea that we're just some animal out there and just leaving loose But based on the idea that each one of us possesses The capacity to think to take care of himself to reason make decisions make choices for one self If you think people are stupid, which is what in most of human history we thought Then they need a guardian. They need somebody Somebody to protect them somebody to tell them what to do somebody to help them out So through this idea that each one of us can reason each one of us can take care of himself And if our choices must be left for the individual a New conception of human life came about. I mean it was new The idea for the first time in human history for the first time in human history was that your life belonged to Who did your life belong to? you Now we take that for granted today I can go to any audience anywhere in the world and ask them who does your life belong to and they say me But if you'd asked 300 years ago, we'll be the answer 500 years ago a thousand years ago your life belonged to the king the tribe the council the state To a whole variety of entities and what was your purpose as an individual? Your purpose as an individual was to serve that entity that owned you you were meaningless you were nothing They would take care of you because you were too stupid to take care of yourself and in return you would sacrifice everything for them and this is a scam that's been going on for a long time a Long time thousands and thousands of years, but suddenly in the late 18th century People started to say no our lives belongs to ourselves. We don't accept your authority over us We have a right a right to life Now that sounds everybody talks today about rights they throw around the world all the time, right? But this is a massive revolution. This is an amazing new idea You have a right to live your life free of coercion you have a right To be free free for authority free from control free from regulation free from other people dictating your life for you and Suddenly people took responsibility for their own lives people were left free to live their lives in places like the United States and in England and parts of Europe and suddenly Not by accident, but suddenly they started to use their mind to discover new ideas and to take those ideas and to apply them in reality They didn't have to get permission to invent the steam engine They just invented it and then commercialized it and then made money on it and they took that money invested in in you other new other products and production processes It's the liberation of the human spirit the liberation of the human mind from authority and coercion that made the world rich and it's the ideas that Made that liberation possible The founding fathers of America It's not an accident that they wrote such amazing documents as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution These men were well read real intellectuals who understood the ideas at the foundation of freedom and liberty and It is those ideas. We must resurrect. It is those ideas that we have given up on That we have lost It's that idea of individualism and the idea of the efficacy of reason that stand at the core of what makes wealth creation possible what makes for a healthy society the sad reality is That from somewhere around 1800 these ideas have been under attack by intellectuals Primarily German intellectuals Do with that as you will From Kant to Schopenhauer to to Hegel to Marx to onwards they march The anti-reason anti-individualist Philosophers and nobody has stood up against them Nobody has challenged these fundamental ideas about their efficacy of reason and the sanctity of individual life And yet that is what the battle is really about We still live in a world we still live in a world That both on the left and on the right Doesn't treat you as an individual The only difference between the left and the right in the world We live in today is which collective they want you to sacrifice to You know the left wants you to sacrifice the poor and the proletarian and fill in the blank trees They love trees more than human beings. They love desert rats more than human beings They want to sacrifice you To all of that the right Wants us you to sacrifice for the nation for the tribe for the group But both of them agree on the fundamental your life Does not belong to you It belongs to them, and then they're just arguing about What to do with your life how to sacrifice your life? They get to decide what business you get to open I hear it takes what a hundred and something days to start a business in Brazil Instead of what how long should it take to start a business in a free country? 24 hours seems like a long time. What are they? What what what business they have looking over any, you know in New Zealand? It takes four hours I'm not sure why it takes that long in the digital world I think you fill out a form online Just you notice they have a record of it right and you press send and you start your business Why not why not I'll tell you why not because it's not your life. How dare you do something without my their permission? That's the principle The principle is the collectivistic principle of your life is not yours. You cannot think for yourself. What is regulation all about? Why do we regulate businesses? Because consumers are too stupid to know what's good for them and businessmen are all lying cheating stealing crooks Maybe not yet, but they will be if we if they have the opportunity Now this is a view of mankind. This is a particular view of what human beings are