 the radical, fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights. This is the Iran Book Show. All right, everybody, welcome to Iran Book Show on this, I don't know what is it, it's Sunday, Sunday night. I think you're all for joining me. I hope you're having a fantastic weekend, had a fantastic weekend, having a fantastic weekend, and looking forward to an amazing week next week. All right, so today we're gonna do one of my Iran's rules for life shows. We haven't done those in a long time. I figured I'd revisit some of the highlights from the series that I did last year. I encourage those of you who have not heard it or miss it, go back and listen to them. I think I've got a playlist on YouTube, playlist, on YouTube with all the Iran rules for life. If you're listening on a podcast, it should be pretty easy to go backwards and find those shows. I can't remember how many we did, 18, 19, something like that of Iran rules for life. I think we started in 2021 and did it through 2022. So hopefully, I know a lot of people enjoyed them, a lot of people loved them, and yeah, go back. Listen, catch up. And one of the reasons I wanted to do this is because we have a lot of turnover in the show. I don't know that we have more turnover than other shows, but a lot of new people show up. A lot of people are here. I know that because there are a lot of new names, there are a lot of new people putting up super chats, a lot of new people on Patreon and on PayPal that are contributing to the show. So there seems to be a constant flow of new people. And at the same time, lots of unsubscribers, but that's okay. People who unsubscribe are typically not the people who are also supporting the show. So I figured the new people, I'd give them a kind of introduction. We're visiting a broad overview of Iran's rules for life. And then if you wanna dig deeper, then there are those 18, 19 shows that you can go and find on the channel, again, either here or on the podcast or on the YouTube, wherever you happen to listen to the show. All right, as always, the super chat is open, open to any questions you have on pretty much anything, rules for life or anything else. And, yeah, feel free to ask any questions. Our goal is $650 as it always is on the evening shows and the longer shows. So hopefully you can partake in asking questions or supporting the show, value for value. It is interesting that we'll probably get fewer live listeners for the show, probably fewer listeners overall for the show because it is a positive kind of show. It was curious if yesterday's show, if I'd named yesterday's show AI pessimism, I would've got a lot more views, a lot more views. So I should've called Iran's rules for life a doomed planet or something like that, maybe. Iran's rules for life for the end of the world, Iran's rules for life for living in a crazy, unbelievable, completely devastated world, something like that. So, yeah, negativity sells if you haven't noticed. And we on the Iran Book Show here or I on the Iran Book Show here, do not, do not support the negativity. So we are going to, we're gonna stay positive. All right, yeah, one of the reason I thought it would be good to do a rules for life show and that is it's election season and I wanted to remind everybody, I wanted to just bring it around to kind of basic principles to what's important in life. I want to remind you of that. I know all of you know it, but remind you of that. We've got elections coming, every day there's some new crazy thing going on and the news about Trump or about Biden or about whatever, you know, who knows what we're gonna get. It's just gonna be one long next year and a half. It's just gonna be constant, just malevolent, dark, horrible, stupid people debating how they wanna control our lives and their status priorities on how to control it. So we need some, I need to remind you not to pay too much attention to that. Also in the midst of a war we'll be talking a lot about this war and that's another reason to kind of try to find some positivity and not focus constantly on this. It's so easy to just get immersed in the negativity that inherently is a war. So and we'll be talking about a lot about this war, particularly in the news updates that we do on a daily basis. So yeah, lots of reasons to kind of take a breath, step back and revisit what's important in life, what's important. All right, so let's do that. Let's do that and I think the first thing that I encourage everybody to do is a war for life to go back to the real origins of Iran's rules for life, of any rules for life and that is to really revisit Iran's views and objectives views on morality, on ethics. Fundamentally, you wanna live a life, you wanna live a life that is a successful life, you wanna orient yourself, you wanna do the work that is necessary to be successful, to be happy, to prosper in the life, in the life that you live. And to do that, the number one thing to do is to remember, to remember that the purpose of your life is you, it is your happiness, your success, your flourishing, your prosperity. That there are objective ways to achieve that happiness, that flourishing, that success and achievement. There are specific ways, objective ways to do that and the number one of those is, of course, to apply reason and rationality to all your decisions and to live a rational life or life guided by reason, by facts, by reality, by evidence. And of course, that is what Iran's moral code is all about. It's about being rational. It's about thinking, about using your mind. And so, the number one thing, we'll put it this way. One of the things we talked a lot about when I did the rules of life shows is to focus in on what you have control over. Focus on what you can change, focus on what you can do. There's nothing you can do about this election. I mean, you can speak up a little bit, you can argue a little bit, you can post, and you can tweet, and you can do all that stuff. But at the end of the day, it is beyond your specific influence. You can change a mind here or change a mind there. And I encourage you to speak up. It's one of the ways in which I think it reduces the stress and reduces the, but always do it from the context of I'm busy living. I'm busy living, busy living. And I'm doing this, but I'm busy living, and I don't have a lot of time to do this. I'll do a little bit of it, but basically I'm gonna be living. And focus, so there are a lot of things. You're not gonna change the one Ukraine, you're not gonna prevent a recession. The things that are just beyond our control and they're just gonna happen. They're man-made. They're not things you should just accept. They're things you should be angry about and generally support those who fight against it. You should devote some resources to speaking up against it, but you can't let those things even man-made that outside of your control dominate your life. So really focus your efforts on that which you control and what is the main thing you can control? What is the number one thing you can control? Well, the number one thing you can control is your character. It's your moral character. It's whether you choose to be a moral human being, which for objectivism means not whether you choose to sacrifice and bleed and suffer and be tortured for some greater cause than yourself. No, that would be horrible. I'd rather debate politics. No, it means to focus your life on you, to be self-interested, to be rationally self-interested, to be rationally self-interested pursuing long-term values, your long-term happiness and success and flourishing. So what is in your control? What is in your control is that which is necessary to achieve that long-term success and that is your thinking, your actions, your behavior. What do you do with your life? And it all starts with, and that is basically the role of morality. The role of morality is to give you principles to help guide you and here I highly, highly recommend from, I know some of you, maybe even many of you have not read our event, highly, highly recommend reading The Virtue of Selfishness, Ayn Rand's book, particularly the essay on the objectives, Ethics, where she articulates this case. I also recommend Leonard Peacoff's, in objectives of the philosophy of Ayn Rand, his section on ethics and of course, all the lecture courses that Leonard Peacoff's given on morality and how to apply it and how to integrate it into your life and what it means. And that I recommend to everybody, even those of you who've read Ayn Rand who think you understand, there's always more to learn, particularly from Leonard Peacoff, there's always more to study. So go pick them up, it's all on YouTube for free, free. Use it. So focus on your moral character, focus on your thinking, focus on what you do, focus on what you act and how you act. Devote real effort, real time thinking, thinking about your life, thinking about what you're doing, thinking about why you're doing it, what your goals are, but really your values, are your values rational? Are your values oriented towards living a good life? Are your values objective? Or do they adhere to reality? Do they adhere to the requirements of a good life? Not all values do. People can have values for the wrong reasons, people can have values that are self-destructive, people can have values that are bad for them. One of the things you need to question, are your values and make sure that they're consistent with living a good life, pursuing your happiness and your success. And again, that is all in your control. Nobody can take that away from you as long as you have free will, as long as you have a mind, as long as you can think, you are in control of your mind, therefore you are in control of your life. And yes, there are all kinds of extenuating circumstances, there are all kinds of things that make it difficult, there are all kinds of things that make it harder for some people. All kinds of excuses you can make, but what's the point? You're not doing this for me or for anybody else, you're doing it for you. Don't make excuses for you, your life. I said this many, many times in the rules of life episodes, but it's worth repeating and I said a lot of my talks. You only have one life, one. It's short, relatively speaking, short. Every second you live, you never get back, there's no reincarnation, there are no do-overs, there's no remake, there's no doing it again, one life, not to be repeated. Doesn't it make really sense, given that amazing opportunity, life is so amazing to make the most of it, to do the best that you can do? Yeah, there are going to be all kinds of circumstances that are bad and hard and difficult and people will piss you off and things that obstruct and disease and just accidents and horrible bosses and horrible employees and a million things that are external to you that can disrupt and but at the end of the day, you live here and you have control over the decisions you make and how you respond and what you take seriously and what you do and what you don't do. And every time you let somebody else, somebody else waste your time, somebody else distract you from your path, it's your loss. So yeah, bad things happen, you gotta get over them, you gotta suck it up, you gotta deal with them, live with them, depending on what's going on, overcome them and continue on the path that you have determined is the path for you to live the best life that you can live for you. And sometimes the actions you need to take in order to resolve the issues that you face are difficult, painful, hard, but it's not a sacrifice because you're doing it for the sake of you, for the sake of your life, for the sake of your values, for the sake of getting better, getting stronger, getting becoming more successful. All right, so orientation is always towards your life, your happiness, your success and everything else, everything else is just noise. This is what's important, your happiness, your success. And again, the best way to do that is really is to live the objectivist moral values, they're not gonna tell you what values, what concrete values to pursue, but they give you the framework, the guidelines, right? And, but it's your responsibility, your job and the effort you need to make to integrate them in and to do whatever work you need to do, psychological, philosophical, whatever you need to do to get rid of the garbage that we all have inside here, all of us, because we've grown up in an irrational society surrounded by irrational people that have done irrational things that have impacted us and we've come to certain conclusions and yeah, we all have garbage. Don't let the garbage dominate, do the work. You know, whether, again, and don't be embarrassed and don't feel fear and don't feel, I don't know, guilt or anything else to seek help in doing that. That's what professionals are for, that's what psychologists are for, that's what the profession is for, to help you clear up the muck so that you can get oriented towards living the best life that you can live. So focus on what you can control first and foremost and really that's a big part of what rules for life. So the first thing that you can control and you need to focus on is just your morality, your character, your thoughts, your psychology, you focus on you, make yourself the healthiest, most rational being you can with the tools that you have and it's hard, not saying it's easy, it's hard. But every minute you spend, I don't know, analyzing your support to objection to the latest indictment of Trump or the latest statement of DeSantis or the latest woke nonsense coming out of the left, every minute you spend on that is a minute you could have spent on just being better. Minute you could have spent on focusing on yourself and figuring out how to be better. I'm not saying never do that, there's a time and a place for that, but depending on how old you are and depending on how much work you have to do on yourself, focus on that first, focus on that first. Seize control in your mind and your emotions and your actions. All right, so that's one, kind of seize control over that. Second, really spend the time that you need and this comes out of the morality, but really spend the time that you need and really focus on, you know, really focus on a career, focus on purpose, focus on purpose. And I think if you focus on rationality and purpose to cardinal values, then the third cardinal value, self-esteem, I won't say take care of himself, but it really is generated from finding a purpose and seeking a purpose and pursuing a purpose and doing it all rationally. So focus in on your career, figure out what you really love doing and what you're good at doing and where you add value, where you produce values, where you can be, where you're going to be compensated for those values. Focus in on doing what you love doing, what is, you know, love doing doesn't mean every second of the day, every time you do whatever you do, you love it, but generally, you know, find something that is, and maybe more important than love doing, find something that challenges you, that pushes you, that requires you to think, that makes you better, makes you better, that, you know, you don't exactly know what to do, where you don't exactly know exactly how to perform, where not everything is easy, but where you're pushed, where you're challenged, where it's, you're growing and you're increasing in your talents and your skills in the pursuit. So, you know, look for, look for a career that is really a challenge, that you enjoy, but joy doesn't mean every minute is like, yeah, isn't this fun? Joy means that you're enjoying the process, that you love the challenge, that it's hard, if it's easy, if it's easy, move on. If it's easy, move on. You want something that pushes you. Yeah, and find it, I think Lewis Philippino says, work for someone who values you. Yeah, work for somebody who values you. You should value the work and they should value you. Value for value. It's a trade. You know, if you're stuck in a job, where you're not enjoying it and you're not getting compensated the way you want to be compensated and that don't value you, then start looking, start looking to make a change. You know, one of the, one of the important rules for life that I articulated is, have the courage to change. Have the courage to take risks part of taking control of your life, part of, you know, managing your life, managing the things that you have control over, is taking risks. Nothing happens, nothing just happens. You've got to go and seek it out. You've got to push. You've got to push yourself and sometimes you'll fail. Sometimes you will fail and accept that and sense embrace that. Learn from failure. Get up, move on. Try again or try something different. But seek out a career that is challenging where you're taking risks and you know, I know for many of you it's hard. You've got, you've maybe already married, you've got kids. It's hard to change careers or to change jobs. And yes, you know, if you've got other people dependent on you who are committed, then be more risk-averse. But that doesn't mean stop. It doesn't mean stop. It means keep looking around. Keep looking for ways to make it better. Keep looking for ways maybe to get a different job, maybe looking for ways to change career that does not have to upset everything and put everything in jeopardy. All of us have different risk tolerances. But the worst is to be completely risk-averse if you're willing to take on any risks. Not a good position to be in life and not a way to advance in, you know, in finance where this concept of risk in return, the more risk you take, the more expected return you have. You're not going to get high returns if you're not willing to accept higher risk. And I think the same is true in life. You want to achieve an exciting life, take some risks. And the biggest one, probably the biggest one, is with your job, with your career, with the path, the productive path that you pursue. All right, so morality, career, what else? Well, take control of what you do with the rest of your life that you have control of. There's a lot of time, you know, a lot of thought and a lot of effort should be devoted to career and to your job and to all of that. But there are other dimensions, other dimensions of life where it's important that you take the reins and you take control, your relationships. Again, we did a whole show on friendship, we did a show on love, so we've covered all this. But one is definitely relationships, one of the most important things that you can have in life, friends, loved ones, figure out who your real good friends are and cultivate that friendship. Don't just let it languish, don't just take it for granted, invest in it, focus on it, devote time, resources, thought, energy to making the friendship work, making the friendship as value for value as possible, making the friendship, expanding on it and don't settle just for some, you know, seek out new people, new friends. You know, one of the tragedies of modern American culture is that by every poll that you look at, almost all the polls and what you can see is people complaining about loneliness, people being lonely. And this is part of the reason you see what are called deaths of despair, suicides, overdoses, death from alcoholism, various diseases of alcoholism and so on. Deaths that are completely unnecessary, you know, can be prevented. But if people have no motivation, people don't care about their life, people are not pursuing values, then they commit suicide. Sometimes they commit suicide very fast, sometimes they commit suicide very slowly, sometimes they commit suicide very, very, very slowly, but they commit suicide. And one of those is people are lonely and people are lonely primarily because they don't take action to find friends and we'll get to love in a minute. They are, I don't know, too weak to lack confidence or self-esteem to go out there and really pursue. You know, one of the, you know, so it's something you have to, it's not just going to happen, particularly in a world where we get so much from our television and our phones, it's so easy to be self-contained, right? It's so easy not to go out there into the world and meet people and do things. It's so easy to just be self-contained that a lot of people fall into that trap. They start watching television and Netflix and this and binge-watching and whatever and they become passive and they stop pursuing, they stop moving. Maybe they have a hard job, they work all day and then they get home and plop in front of the television with a beer and that's it. Don't do that. You know, it would be great if we used our social media, like Facebook, to engage with our friends, to say, touch with our friends, to coordinate getting together with friends, to engage in, I don't know, conversation with our friends. But the fact is, so many of us, so many people use Facebook to get pissed off at the latest, I don't know, thing that's going on in the world. So, value your friends if they're real friends and we talked about what are real friends and what are not, value your friends, find new friends. If you don't have friends, find them. If your old friends are no longer your friends because you're so different philosophically then go seek out people who share your philosophy. I mean, one of the great things about Ocon, which is coming up in Miami and it's not too late to register by the way, but one of the great things about Ocon, one of the objectives conferences that's going to be in Miami in three weeks is, you know, the 4,500 people who are all kind of share the philosophy, you know, there's some crazy people there, some weird people there, but mostly it's kind of saying nice people who share your philosophy. And it's a great opportunity to go and meet people and befriend people and it's a great opportunity to be active, to pursue relationships, to pursue friendships and yeah. So again, active and take risks because sometimes friends can hurt you. Sometimes friends can stab you in the back and that can really, really hurt and a lot of people don't even pursue it because why take the risk, the emotional risk? As I said, without risk there's no reward. There's loss sometimes, there's failure sometimes. Take the risk, be brave, courage, courage, not a major, one of the major seven virtues was certainly a virtue under integrity. So friendship, pursue it. And everything I said about friendship is true of love. You know, there are men that have given up, men going their own way, they're incels. Again, they're all kind of different variations on the same kind of loneliness parameter. Right, on the loneliness parameter. Don't give up whether you're a man or a woman. Most of the people listening to this show are young men. Or men, some young, some not so. Number of women is small. Don't give up. Keep trying. It's worth it. There's very few values as precious as love in the world in which we live. There's very few relationships that you will get as much from as you will from a romantic relationship. And granted, it's one of the most painful things when it doesn't work out and it's one of the riskier things when you get rejected. But this is exactly where you have to build up the courage, build up the self-esteem, build up the confidence to go out there and try it. And it's hard, I know, I know. It's hard, maybe it's harder today than it was in the past because of technology, because of dating apps, because of the changing roles of men and women and the difficulty in, you know, calibrating it. Calibrating the relationship and calibrating the roles. But, you know, again, it's where you've got to put in effort, put in a lot of thought, find somebody you like and figure it out with them. Figure it out with them. There's no one way to have a relationship. There's not one way to divide up roles between men and women or whatever, two men, two women, whatever, living together. There's no one way to live. And you work it out, figure out what works for you and whoever your partner is. Jupiter Manus says dating is a numbers game, don't quit. I think in the world of internet dating, it certainly probably is a numbers game because I think you get a lot less information from that than meeting somebody in a workplace. Nobody goes to work anymore. Meeting somebody in the workplace or getting to an office romance is found upon. You know, in the past, you kind of met people socially work and I think you had more information about them before you ever got to, before you dated and I think maybe not. Maybe you just get these profiles on an app. I don't know how much info is there. I don't know how valuable it is. I don't know how people screen one another. But keep trying. Maybe it is a numbers game. I don't know. I have no advice on how to play the game. All I can tell you is do it because the risk of not doing it is too great. It's like AI, right? Doing it is much more risky and much more damaging to your life than doing it and taking on the risk, right? So, yeah, pursue romantic love, pursue romantic relationships and figure out how to calibrate your relationship with your family, not your chosen family, your unchosen family, correctly, your parents, your siblings, your cousins, your uncles, aunts, whatever. Remember that they are family in a sense by accident. You have a relationship with them by accident. It doesn't mean there's no values there. They usually are. And usually it's an important relationship but it doesn't have to be. Sometimes a sibling is just horrible and you don't want to have a relationship with them. That's okay. It's your life. Your life is the standard. Not theirs. Sometimes your parents, they're horrible things to you and you don't owe them anything. And even if you love your parents and you like your siblings, your orientation has to be to you and your life, not to them. They come into your life to the extent that you love them and to the extent that you care about them. But there's so much pressure in our society to sacrifice for our family, to sacrifice for our parents, our siblings, our distant relatives, whether it's financially, whether it's time, whether it's taking care of. Again, you've got to be self-interested, rationally so, considering your values, considering what's important to you. So not irrational, not emotionally, but rationally. So calibrate that relationship correctly. Work on that. And what that really means is put it into the context of you living your life to the best of your ability, living the best life that you can. How does the family fit in? Figure it out. But it's not automatic that they are priority number one. It's rare that they would be priority number one. Yeah, family is very good, as Fang points out, and most are manipulation. Don't let them. Don't allow it. Reject it thoroughly. All right. I'm trying to think how long to go here we could go on for a while. But let me, let's do a few more things, right? One of the things that you have control over, again, you have control over your life, your thoughts, you have control over the values you choose. You have control certainly over your moral values and take those moral values seriously because they guide everything that you're going to do. And then you have control over your career, take control, take the reins, make it purposeful, thoughtful, focused on the long run. Take control of your relationships, friendships. And by the way, friendship is not a numbers game. Friendship is about quality, not quantity. You can have few friends that are fantastic, that are great, that inspire you and help you live the best life that you can. That's what's important. Not how many. Wow, Troy came in with 500 Australian dollars. Thank you, Troy. Really, really appreciate the support. Appreciate you being here and supporting what we're doing. I think Troy particularly likes the rules for life shows, you know, from last year. So, friendship, romance, family, relationships, calibrate them, get them right. Again, it takes work to get them right. It's not like there's a formula. There's no rationalistic answer. There's no, you just have to experience it. You have to focus on the things that matter to you. Okay, finally, maybe finally we'll see, focus on, again, in the realm of things that you can control, focus on your environment, on where you live, on how you live, on what you do with your time, beyond career. And here, I think in the rules for life episodes, we emphasize beauty and art, and engaging in those things. Making the environment something you control, your office, your room, your desk, your living space, however big, however small, whether it's at work or at home, make it something that you enjoy. Make it something that you feel passionate about, making something that you smile when you see it, because you see it pretty much every day. It's right there in front of you every day. So the little things, the pictures you have, the things you have on the wall, the ornaments, the decorations, the type of furniture you have, make it thoughtful. Think about what you're doing. Think about why you're doing it. Develop taste. I know a lot of, in the culture we live in today, this is not something people think about, but develop a taste. Develop an opinion, develop favorites, develop an aesthetic. What do I like what I don't like? What is pretty for me? What is not? You know, there's a question of why you could ask yourself, and I always challenge people to, even if they like this, challenge yourself to kind of try new things, aesthetically, so that when you come back to the thing you like, you have compared it, and maybe now you've exposed the new things that you like even more. Again, whether that's furniture, whether that's anything aesthetic. But yeah, flowers, you know, nice stuff. Not hard. Easy to do. It takes a few minutes. Organize the things around you and make them nice. I don't think I, you know, I historically have always had cluttered desks. And that's just the reality. My desks are cluttered. Lots of wires on this desk, lots of equipment on my desk here. But, you know, I have stuff around me that is beautiful, so desk is cluttered. That's fine. Find the right balance for you. And then, of course, the ultimate in aesthetics is go experience, go experience great art in every realm. And here, I've encouraged you many times to push yourself, push yourself. I've done a few shows on art. You know, I know people like, you know, you might like certain paintings or certain artists or certain posters or certain graphical design or whatever. Push yourself. Figure out why are the, why are the classics classics? Why does you want to talk about Caravaggio all the time? Or why do people talk about Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael and Michelangelo? What is it? Well, until you experience that, until you open yourself up to it and until you read up a little bit about it and try to figure out what's going on, you need to learn to appreciate great art. You might have grown up with rap or, I don't know, pop or whatever is on the radio. And that's what you love and everything. But there's so much more. There's so much more. Yeah, obviously, classic rock. But there's, there's classical music. There's jazz. There's great symphonies and operas and concertos and trios and chamber music. And there's just, I mean, God, discovering classical music is like, it's like a whole life there. You can spend your life just, just listening to everything that's available. And so much of it is beautiful and amazing. Open your mind up or, you know, be willing, be willing to try. Maybe you've, you've, you love the novels of Clancy and, I don't know, Ledlow or whatever, Born Identity or whatever the latest, greatest popular fiction is today. You should pick up a novel by Hugo. You should try some of the 19th century romantics. Even if it's something like, like the three musketeers, right? You get action and high quality literature, romantic literature. So experiment. And, and, you know, Lewis Filipino says, I love listening to heavy metal. That's great that you love listening to heavy metal. But you should try other stuff too. And it's going to be hard because it's different. It's a completely different mindset. It's a completely different aesthetic experience. But there's a reason, there really is a reason that classical music is classical. The classical music has survived as long as it has, hundreds of years in some cases, hundred years in other cases. So broaden your horizon. Give it a shot. Give it a try. Jennifer says 1930s movies. Absolutely. Try some black and white great movies that a lot of them I've given over the years. I've given many recommendations on the show for some of the classic movies from the 1930s. Give it a try. You'll find a different but immense value. And not just the 30s, the 40s, the 50s, the 60s, you know. Old movies, classical movies. So surround yourself with beauty and immerse yourself in aesthetics and experience. Go on and immerse yourself in aesthetic experiences. Watch movies. Watch good TV. Watch, you know, and go look, go to museums. I've given some advice on how to approach a museum, how not to be overwhelmed in a museum. Go look at the paintings, the sculptures, the, you know, the read great novels, try something new in terms of your novels, and listen. Try out some classical music. Give it a shot. Give it a shot. All right. I think we'll call that a night. That is kind of an introduction. Again, we did 19 shows focused on each one of these things and many others. There's a playlist. Check out the playlist. I think you'll enjoy it. Those of you new to the show, you know, try it out. I, you know, I think it all, you know, Fred Harper says, Whose full life series changed my life in positive ways? Definitely check it out and share what you learn from them with the world. Absolutely. I mean, at the end of the day, if we're going to change the world, we're going to change it by arguing politics. We're going to change the world. We're going to change it by who we vote for. We're going to change the world. We're going to change it by changing people's attitude towards morality, by changing fundamentally people's attitude towards their own life, by changing the way people live, by changing their values. If people become egoistic, if people pursue their own happiness, capitalism is, freedom is like easy to convince them of. That's where the real battle is. The real battle is not over this policy or that policy or this walk thing or that walk thing. The real battle is over ethics and morality and how to live and making the most of your life and what should life be about? That's what it's really about. And that's what I want you to share. My attitude is what I want you to share. Not just share in terms of clicking the button but share in terms of speaking. I want you first of all to live the best life that you can live. That's the best way you can change the world, your world, and then also other people's world because they'll look at you and say, hey, how come you've been so successful? What's your secret? And then share these ideas. Share Ayn Rand's book. Share Ayn Rand's novel. Share the virtue of selfishness. Share. And as you evolve, as you grow in your friendships and your romantic relationships in the music and the art that you love and the beauty that surrounds yourself, again, more opportunities to share, more opportunities to have friends, have friends around music, have friends around your aesthetic values. So keep growing. Keep growing. And that's how we'll change the world. That is how we change the world. All right. Thanks, guys. Hopefully you enjoyed that and hopefully you benefited from it. Just to give you a quick update on the Super Chat, we've raised about $510. So $140 short. So $720 questions will get us there. Not that hard. So $720 questions or a few $50 questions. So let me jump in with the questions. All right. I don't see any $20 questions really on topic, so I will just jump in with not your average algorithm. You said yesterday we have direct observation that we have free will. But you can't have direct observation to something conceptual. You have to think about it. Direct observation is only for physical things. That's not true. For example, you have a direct observation of your emotions. You don't have to think about your emotions. I'm afraid right now. I can directly feel that. It's a direct observation. I don't observe it through my senses, but I'm still observing it. It's still as real as anything that I can see. If I come and tell you, no, no, no, you're not feeling fear right now. What are you talking about? That's nonsense. There's nothing to be afraid of, so you're not feeling fear. I mean, you'd call me BS. You directly observe your emotions. You don't have to think about them. And in the same way you directly observe you making a choice. And fundamentally, you making a choice of, I'm going to focus now. I'm going to be attentive to the world. I'm going to be engaged. I'm going to turn it on. Turn my mind on. That's what free will is. Turning your mind on. It's not this or that particular choice that you make. It's this choice. And that, you know, you know that sometimes you drift and you snap out of it and you focus your mind. You know that then when you start to wake up in the morning and you have to, oh, here I am. I could just stay drowsy and unalert and drifting. Or I can really sharpen my, and I observe that. I observe the fact that I do that, I bring up certain energy to allow for the focused app. And again, the observation is not only physical things. You can observe states of consciousness. You can observe emotions. You can observe your own thinking, right? You can observe your own choosing. Happy to take any follow-up, not your average algorithm. Adam says, regarding the AI show, I recommend listening to Miyako Kaku, physicist, talk about quantum computing another level above current AI. He's positive of human ability to reason it's optimistic about the future. That's exciting. It's great to hear somebody like that. Quantum computing is, if they can make it work, it's a whole level up. I've also listened to this guy in England. It's an Oxford, a Cambridge, I can't remember. Who is designed a chemical computer that uses chemical processes to compute. And who claims, and this guy seems, I mean, he's real. He's got the credentials and he's got all that and he's got papers and everything. But it seems like he's got a chemical computer that's as fast as the quantum computer and as faster than anything we have in silicone. And of course that allows for bigger and greater AI. Knowledge is growing and people's ability to use technology and people's ability to take the material of the world and rearrange it in ways that benefit humanity and achieve values, benefit individual humans and achieve values is truly striking. And quantum computing, chemical computing, AI, I mean, the future is amazing. And this is why it's so gross. Gross is, I think, the appropriate technical term. It's so gross to be consumed by all the nonsense out there. All the nonsense that our politicians spew, all the nonsense of the regular negativity, the regular stupidity of people. And it's all over the world. And one of the great mysteries is how can we be, on the one hand, considering Donald Trump to be president of the United States and on the other hand, building quantum computers. How does that compute? How do you fit in the same universe? And I'm not just picking on Donald Trump, make it Joe Biden and make it all the losers up in Washington. How are these people important? Any of them, the politicians in Washington DC, how are they important? I mean, given what human beings are capable of. And they're the important people. People building quantum computers and AI and I don't know, nuclear fusion and fission and everything else. Those are the people who count. Those are the people who are going to move civilization forward. Those are the people that need to be supported and those are the people we need to be excited about. And instead, we obsess about the latest and greatest travesty coming out of Washington DC. All right, just a reminder to everybody, please like the show before you go. We've got 77 people watching live. We've got 52 likes. We should have a lot more likes than that. We've had people coming in and out. We've had 200 people probably easily, maybe 300 people watching the show over the last hour. So please consider giving it a like if you like the show. Don't like it if you don't like it, but it just takes a moment to press that button whether it's on your phone or your iPad or your computer. Just press that button like and it helps the algorithm. And Fred Harper says that if we get to 75 likes, he'll contribute another $20. So you get, I get rewarded financially if you guys can get that up to 75 likes. Thank you, Fred Harper, for challenging them. We went for 52 to 53 likes because of that spiel. I'm not very convincing, obviously. All right, it's ticking up a little bit now. People like to find the like button. But it's there and it really helps the algorithm. It's part of what YouTube determines, your engagement, including the likes, your engagement is part of what YouTube decides whether to promote the show or not to promote the show. So it really, really does help. Andrew says if the sexes are growing increasingly alienated from each other, one of the reasons is the increasing assertiveness of women. How should men respond to that phenomena so as not to feel insecure? Well, don't feel insecure. I don't know. I mean, why would women be more sort of be a bad thing? You think it was a good thing? It means that women have, they have more value, not less value. When I say take your life seriously, it means they're taking their life seriously. It means they're being more egoistic. They know what their values are and they're pursuing them. So as a man, you should think of it as I want an assertive woman. I want a woman who stands for something that believes in something that has values and is willing to fight for those values. I want a woman of substance. I don't want just a woman who makes me dinner when I come home, like Matt Walsh. I don't want to be Matt Walsh. I don't want a 50s family. I want something more exciting and more thrilling and more sexier and more interesting than that. More challenging than that. So to men, I say challenge yourself. Challenge yourself to be good enough to be strong enough to have enough self-esteem to deal with an assertive woman. You should be assertive. As a man, as a human being, rise to the challenge. I think it's a beautiful thing that women are becoming more assertive. I think it's a beautiful thing that women are working. I think it's a beautiful thing that women sometimes make more money than the man. I think all that is fantastic. She has a career. Live up to it. It's a challenge. Again, challenge yourself. Push yourself. That's what life is about. Alright, Adam. Adam is here with 50 bucks. Thank you, Adam. I wish everyone that listened to sermons today had instead listened to this show. That's right. Today's Sunday. I forgot. Thank you for your intro to objectivism and its principles. Not always easy, but it's motivating and absolutely leads to a better and more fulfilling life. Thank you, Adam. Really, really appreciate that and appreciate all the support you provided me over the last year. One more. Thomas Schubert says, I'm looking forward to playing cello this week at ARI donor events in Seattle and Portland. Oh, fun. Hey, how come I wasn't invited? I guess because I don't live anywhere near Seattle or Portland. So much more enjoyable than beating politics. Absolutely. And as you know, Thomas, some of you don't know, I love the cello. The cello in many respects is, I don't know if it's my favorite instrument, but it's up there in top two, three. It just has this amazing warmth. It's almost like a human voice. It's just so moving and so emotional. It can convey emotion so effectively in some ways more than a violin because it's more, it's got those, it's more human. It's more like a human voice than a, than the highs of a violin. Anyway, I love the cello. Some of my favorite pieces are for the cello. So all of you in Seattle and Portland, go see Thomas Schubert and play the cello and enjoy which dress code requires a tie. What dress code requires a tie? Maybe that's why I wasn't invited. Noel says, always enjoy your rules of life. Thank you, Noel. Really appreciate the support. Schubert says, the usual naysayers aren't here today. That must mean they agree with you on this topic. You think? You think? They don't show up for the positive shows. They only show up for the negative shows. Or if Trump was in the title, they'd all be here. Jupiter Manor says, great overview tonight. Thanks. Thank you, Jupiter. Appreciate it. All right. That's all the $20 questions and we are only $18 short of a goal. So one $20 question and we are there. So please consider doing that. Or if we can get a 75 likes, we're still 13 short. Don't forget to like the show before you leave. We're still close with the algorithm. But 13 more likes and Finn Hopper solves the problem. Was it Finn Hopper? I think it was Finn Hopper. Who said he would contribute $20. Yeah, it was Finn Hopper. There it is. Adam just pushed us over the limit. Thank you, Adam. Adam says, regarding the empowered women comment. It's worth another $20 to hear you trash Matt Walsh. Imagine not being attracted to the mind of Dagny Tucker. Exactly. That's a great example. You know, Dagny. I mean, how are you not attracted to Dagny Taggart? How are you not attracted to this courageous, assertive, strong, powerful woman who knows exactly what she wants and goes out to get it, who achieves and succeeds and feels. I mean, remember the scenes of her listening to music. How sexy are those? I mean, Dagny should be the standard. And you should want to love a Dagny at whatever level you can. I mean, there are very few Dagny's in the world. But you should want somebody who represents that for you, who pushes you, challenges you as Dagny pushes and challenges all her lovers. Christopher says Dagny would punch Matt Walsh in the face and then plead guilty in court. And the judge would like, I get it. She'd give one of those court speeches that gets her off as in Iron Man's. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, Matt Walsh is such a nothing. He's such a nobody. He's so weak and he's such a, he's not a man. Not in the false sense of that word. He's crippled his own mind. He devotes his life to what? Yeah, not a role model at all. At all. Can't really think and, you know, once weakness, wants to surround himself with weakness. But he's a man. So he's weak. So he wants people who are weaker than him. He wants people weaker than him. That's, that's what makes him a man feeling stronger than the people around him. So he finds people around him that are weaker. Matt is contemptible. He's awful. All right, Andrew. Many conceptualize individualism as a political concept. It's main characteristic is fighting against others control. How do you conceive of individualism and the positives? Individualism is living your life for your own sake using your own mind. And that's what individualism is. It's pursuing your values. And it's the political system that allows you to do that. It's not about fighting against others control. It's not about coercion. It's about you living your life and figuring out the best political system. The best political system possible to achieve your values. And that's capitalism. But you see, individualism and capitalism, these are positive terms, not negatives. It's not about stopping coercion. It's not about not letting other people control you. It's about living. It's about positive energy. It's about going out then and living your life and, you know, pursuing your values and using your mind and living by your judgment. And yet to do that, I need the absence of coercion. But the fundamental of individual rights and the fundamental of individualism is you using your mind, your judgment in pursuit of your values in order to achieve your happiness. It's a positive concept. Someone's here is defending Matt Walsh. He has made the most successful documentary I've ever made. I mean, it's horrible documentary. It's badly done. Yes, it plays to the lowest common denominator to a very low denominator. He doesn't really even understand what a woman really is because he can't conceive of sex. He can't conceive of a positive US sex. And he can't conceive of a strong positive image of a woman. He's defining women, yes, as a biological thing, but he doesn't even get what that means and what that implies and what that leads to. See, yeah, he makes fun of leftists. Easiest thing in the world, make fun of leftists. He makes fun of irrational, subjectivist, emotionalist, pathetic, you know, leftist professors. In some cases, evil people who want to do horrible things to kids. But that's not hard. Does he have a positive conception of what a woman is? What a woman is? No, it's pretty pathetic that that is the most successful documentary I've ever made, if it is, if that's what it is. Pretty pathetic that that's what Elon Musk chose to highlight. So something about the superficiality there. Oh, by the way, oh, let me wait. By the way, do you see Elon Musk today? Somebody posted something about, oh, two things by Elon Musk today were a little scary. But I can't remember what they are. I had it. I had it in my thought. One was about AI. I remember that one. Mark Adresin put up a thing we talked about yesterday about Mark Adresin's essay. His positive view of AI. And he put up a thing today saying, look, any questions you have about my essay, about my perspective on AI, ask them here on Twitter and I will answer them. And Elon Musk says, are there any negatives? Because Elon Musk, of course, has this negative view of AI. And then he had something else that was really, even more awful, really awful in terms of what he wrote. Anyway, I'll remember it and I'll share it with you another time. Kalman's Operator, this is Stephen Harper. Kalman's Operator, Arizona Lady, will be performed at Ohio Light Opera with several performances in Worcester, Ohio. God, Worcester, Ohio is in the middle of nowhere, I think. Anyway, it's far from where I am. But yes, Kalman, Enric Kalman, one of the, maybe the greatest, is the greatest opera-rata composer ever. A favorite of Avain Granz and a favorite of Lena Peacops. Although I don't know that they particularly like Arizona Lady, Kalman generally, they loved Arizona Lady is the one he wrote about America. But yeah, if you have an opportunity to see a Kalman Operator, go see a Kalman Operator. Oh, thank you, Kirk, yes. Here's the horrible thing. I mean, I can't believe that Elon Musk said this. Every few months you have to completely recalibrate your opinion of Elon Musk. So Ted Kacinski died, committed suicide, it looks like, in his jail cell. And there was a quote on Twitter of a Ted Kacinski quote that says something about how the industrial revolution was horrible to mankind and resulted in this horrible condition of mankind. And then Elon Musk, which is a quote from Ted Kacinski, and then Elon Musk says, he might be right. What a negative view of mankind, particularly by one of the great innovators of the world in which we live. How tragic it is that somebody with the brains and the ability of an Elon Musk would have that kind of attitude to life and to progress and to the industrial revolution and to just the world. It's just horrible, just horrible and sad, pretty pathetic. So one day you love him, one day you hate him. Yeah, very confusing. All right, Michael says, do you think businessmen have an easier time challenging altruism than intellectuals, businessmen, maybe most guilt-ridden members of our society? I think they have chosen explicitly not to live by that ideology. The challenge they have is they don't have an alternative. And then what happens to them is they do feel the guilt because they know they don't have an alternative. They know this is what morality means. They know this is what they're supposed to do. And yet they don't live it. And yeah, they definitely feel guilty as a consequence. Are they the most guilty? I don't know. I mean, you have to go one by one, but probably as a group, they probably are the ones who feel the most guilt in our society. And it's sad because they're also the people who create, build, make the society what it is. They are the greatest contributors to human well-being in all of human history. And yet they never allow themselves to enjoy that fact. James Taylor, instead of leaving all your money in a stock portfolio, would you ever consider purchasing a small apartment complex to live off rental income? The return is typically much higher than the stock market. Not for me, I mean, but I understand why people would want to do it. I have no problem doing it for people to do that. It requires maintenance. It requires energy. It requires time. It requires effort. Real estate prices can also come down. And I know people who've done this and lost. So as with all things, it's not risk-free. I'm not convinced that the return is typically greater than a stock market over the long run. I don't know. My guess is it's not. But it's probably about the same or risk-adjusted about the same. So I have no philosophical qualms or problems with doing that. It's partially whether you want to do the work necessary to maintain it and to collect the rent and to do all that and so on. But I know a lot of people do very well with renting out apartment complexes and have made a lot of money doing it. That's when a lot of people became unbelievably rich by investing in the stock market. So it really depends on your particular preferences. My point is generally, generally, diversify. Don't put all your money in one asset class. So yeah, buy a smaller part complex. But with your rest of your savings, buy a diversified portfolio as well. So diversify. Okay, Jacob says, headed to Milan, East Milan at the end of the summer for work. Any must-do things in the area besides art, looking for great experiences. Milan, I mean, Milan is art. I mean, there is a lot of art there. So you said besides art, so I won't mention art. But what else is there to do in Milan? Yeah, I don't know. There's Modena, South of Milan. There's the Ferrari factory, which is fun. There's also some of the, you know, the area around Milan, not so much in the city, but in the surrounding parts of Italy. Some of the best restaurants in the world out there. So that's worth experiencing. Yeah, so, you know, and Milan is a fun city. It's a nice city. It's a modern, buzzing city, famous for fashion. Liam, I feel like people with anger management issues aren't nihilistic. They want values in life and are just frustrated. Not achieving them real nihilists are largely passive in nature. Yeah, I don't know. Anger management issues could be caused by lots of different things. I'm not a psychologist, so I wouldn't. I've never said, and I wouldn't say that people who have anger management issues are nihilists. Real nihilists are largely passive in nature. Yeah, I think real nihilists, you know, destroy their own life before they destroy anything else. So in that sense, many of them are passive. Oh, yes. Of course, Thomas Schubert said La Scala. But La Scala is art. He said no art. It's like, can't mention La Scala. Go see an opera in La Scala. There you go. That's what I would do in Milan. Also, the cemetery in Milan is one of the best places in the whole world for sculpture. And of course, Leonardo da Vinci's La Sapa is in Milan as there's an unfinished... Yeah, the La Sapa, there's a lot of good art in the museums in Milan. So art, there's a lot. Hopper Campbell says, people will call it holding grudges. I call it, I saw who you are and I'm not unseeing it. Yeah, good for you, Hopper. Absolutely. I believe in judging people and holding that judgment until you get new evidence. Clark says, what is the difference between loyalty and duty? Duty is something you must do for no rational reason. It's your duty to do it. Why? Because it's written in a book because the king said so because this is what you're supposed to do. This is a morality that is filled with duty. Iron Man talks about duty. Duty is a very bad thing. It's unchosen. Loyalty can be a virtue. It's not one of the top virtues but it is. Loyalty is, I think, a sub-virtue under justice and under integrity. It's about staying true to your values. It's about staying true to your friends, staying true to the things you believe in. It's not unconditional just as... Your friendship is not unconditional just as your... Love is not unconditional just as your... Nothing's unconditional. You have to know the conditions. Loyalty is a minor virtue. It's about being just with the people around you and not betraying the people that you value and the things that you value. It's chosen. It's not like duty which is unchosen. Michael says, why do you think people turn to narcissism as a mechanism for overriding altruism? Well, because they don't know any better because it's all they have. All they have is emotions. All they want to focus on themselves. They reject the idea of sacrifice but they don't know what to do with that. They don't know how and they think it's outside of morality and usually it's driven by an emotion and that drives them towards a superficial narcissistic view of life. Michael asks, do you see any signs that Germany philosophy is being rejected? It amazes me. It held on after the two world wars it caused. Well, but nobody thinks it caused it. Nobody knows it caused it other than objectivists and maybe a few others. It's still absolutely strong. It dominates the culture. In its most perverse incarnations, whether it's postmodernism on the left or whether it's the duty-bound notions on the right, whether it's the nationalism on the right, there are lots of variations on German philosophy that are still strong in the culture and it won't go away until it's replaced with something better and there is no something better other than I think objectivism. So it requires a victory of objectivism for it to go away. Jacob says, for the value of travel and the rules of life episode, I love new experiences, skiing new mountains, eating new food and meeting new people. Yeah, I love travel too. It was certainly one of the shows I did on Rules for Life was on the value of travel. Should all travel? Go see the world. Matt Walsh is quoted as saying, I have no self-esteem. Thank you, Coke. I remember him saying that because he believed self-esteem doesn't exist. There's no such thing as self-esteem. What a loser. Michael asks, is Trump finished? I don't know. I doubt it. Trump never seems to be finished. He always seems to somehow survive. So I'm not going to argue that Trump is finished. Trump is finished. He just has this ability to resurrect himself constantly. Harper Campbell says, all these empowered women will die alone surrounded by empty wine bottles and cats. Ah, not true. Don't be so, don't be so, I don't know what's the right term. That's just not true. There are some empowered women, empowered in quotes, that that will happen to, but most of them will have successful careers, will do amazing things in their lives, and will find strong men to have romantic relationships with. And why are we against empowered? What is it? What is we reject by empowered? Seems weird. Seems strange. Come on, Harper. The ones who are surrounded by empty wine bottles and cats are not empowered. If you're empowered, you don't surround yourself with cats and wine bottles. All right, I think we're done. Oh, friend Harper just jumped in. I get the impression that loyalty is only a rational value if it's loyalty to reason and rational principles like a loyalty to justice and not to people. Is that a reasonable formulation in your opinion? I think it can be loyalty to people. That is, I think to a friend and to be loyal to him, to stick by him, it doesn't mean to violate your other principles. It doesn't mean to do things that are wrong or you wouldn't do otherwise, but it means to stand up for your friends, to stand up for the people you value, to people you love, to people that are important to you, and not to sell them out, not because of lack of energy or laziness or lack of courage. Not be willing to stand with those people. So, yes, loyalty is a rational value when it's loyalty to reason or rational principles or good people, good friends, good loved ones. So, people who are a value because of justice. So, it's a loyalty to justice, but in the context of specific concretes, the people. Justice is an abstraction. What you really love, too, is this person as an act of justice. Shazmit says, if self-esteem doesn't exist, then what is the difference between an Olympic gold medal winner and a basement dweller? Well, I don't know what Matt Walsh would say. One is a success and the other isn't, but it's not like they... I don't know what he would say. It's so mind-boggling that somebody would say there's no system of self-esteem and it doesn't exist, but he has a whole PragerU video, PragerU. Prager University, that amazing place where you can learn all about life. And where he says self-esteem doesn't exist. Now, of course, he straw-mans it by using self-esteem the way the left, you know, giving everybody a ribbon and telling everybody to have self-esteem and patting everybody in the back. But he's not an idiot. He could conceive, and there are lots of people who talk about different conceptions of self-esteem that don't involve that anti-self-esteem attitude. Instead, he rejects the whole concept, which is typical because it's associated with pride and Christians cannot have pride. Pride is a vice. A vice, one of the deadly vices. One of the deadly sins is pride. They can't have self-esteem because self-esteem is associated with pride. Veni vidi vechi. Veni vidi vechi. I am struggling with embracing AI because I see many examples of AI being used as a tool to avoid using one's mind and thought. Do you find this also? How to balance this new tech with principles? No, I actually don't see people using it in order to avoid thought. I mean, what AI is being used to is to, you know, allow me to think about more important things. That is, it is what it is focused on eliminating are the simple stuff, like going and doing research. You can do research for me, so I can actually use my mind to integrate things and to go deeper and to find new angles. But it can bring me the information. So no, I think it is a thought multiplier. It is a way to leverage your thought. It is a way to get the simple, easy, boring aspects. Well, not even, not boring because thinking is not boring, but, you know, the easy routine, the stuff that just requires, yeah, and it condenses them. It provides you, it speeds it up for you, and it gives you more time to do more deep thinking. So, you know, I think it is a tool, like any other tool. And what it does is makes you stronger, makes you stronger, makes your mind better because you now have time to think about what is important and let it do what is not important. I mean, in a sense, Adam Campbell says, a calculator is AI too. Yeah, in a sense a calculator is. In a calculator, I don't multiply. I don't remember the multiplication table anymore because I use a calculator. So what? That allows me to a huge shortcut, less energy consumed. I can focus my mind on thinking about other things. All right, everybody, thank you to all the Super Chatters. Thank you, Troy, for really getting us, getting us a long way towards our goal. We blew away the goal. So thank you guys all for helping. I will see you tomorrow morning with a news roundup. So we're back to the political nonsense and what's going on in the world. But, you know, we'll have an update on the war in Ukraine and we'll have updates on what's going on all around us. And again, I'll try to inject as many positive things into the news roundups as we move forward. All right, everybody, have a great rest of your night. Have a great week.