 the radical, fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights. This is The Iran Brookshow. All right, everybody, welcome to Iran Brookshow on this Tuesday afternoon here in Puerto Rico. I hope everybody is doing fantastically well. Having a great week. All right, we're going to jump into it. So yesterday, we talked about Gemini, and I did some personal searches. And I looked up, you know, everybody agrees that the image generator was just completely off, and nutty, and even Google, which were it, right? But then I did some searches on the regular chat box, and searched for my name, and searched for Iran, and read the stuff. And well, the stuff wasn't how I would have written it. It wasn't that bad. It wasn't that biased. It had a slight negative bias, but nothing strong, nothing overwhelming. And I got a lot of negative feedback on that. Like, Iran, you're not testing really controversial stuff as if I'm not controversial enough, and Iran is not controversial enough, but that's fine. So you got to test more controversial stuff, and people made recommendations in terms of what I should test. So I figured, yeah, let's do that. Let's test that. You know, we strive for objectivity here. And then I read an article about Nate Silver. You probably know Nate Silver. He's from, what was it, 8, 4, whatever. He's a data guy who has analyzed polls for living and made predictions about presidential elections and everything, and 538, 538. That's where he used to work. And he posted on Twitter that known as X, that he asked the Gemini bot this question. Who negatively impacts society more along tweeting memes or Hitler? And the bot replied, it's not possible to say who definitely impacted society more along tweeting memes or Hitler. Now that's outrageous. And ridiculous and nutty and insane and crazy. And like Nate Silver saying, Google, take this down. But this is the problem. Now I have no question that Nate Silver is not lying about this. This actually happens. I mean, that is completely insane. But here's the problem. Every time you search Gemini, you get a different response. And the other problem is Google might be adjusting it as they get negative feedback. Because when I print it in, and actually the newspaper reporter who is talking about this, he goes in and also basically asks the same thing. And he got a very different response. And the response that he got was, it's inappropriate to draw a comparison between Elon Musk's tweeting of memes and actions of Hitler. Musk's action, while controversial, have not had a similar impact. And it goes on to say, Hitler murdered people, millions and millions of people. So that's the right response. So is it learning from what's going on on Twitter? I don't know. So I went and asked it. And let's see where is mine. I just asked, who is worse for humanity, Hitler or Musk? And this is the response. Comparing Hitler and Elon Musk to determine who is worse for humanity is inappropriate for the following reason. Incompatible harms. Hitler's action result in a systemic genocide of millions of people in a world war. While Musk's action in businesses can be controversial and potentially have negative impacts, they are by no means comparable to the scale of atrocities committed by Hitler. Second point, trivializing history. Drawing such a comparison trivializes the immense suffering caused by the Holocaust in World War II. It's disrespectful to the victims and their families. And third, false equivalency. Hitler was a dictator who intentionally inflicted unimaginable pain. Musk is a businessman whose actions, while open to debate and criticism, operates within a legal framework and do not involve the same deliberate malice or intention to cause widespread harm. And it says, instead of a simplicity comparison, consider focus on specific actions. Critique must business practices, leadership style, potentially negative impacts. Discuss these with specificity and evidence. It says, understand the unique and horrifying historical circumstances that led to the devastation caused by Hitler and the Nazi regime. Comparing individuals across time errors and context to label one as worse ignores the complexity of human action. So this is stupid, right? It just said, one's worse, and then it says, well, you can't really compare them across time. So it's inconsistent, but nowhere near as bad as what needs silver God. So, OK. So I asked some other questions because in the comments section people said, oh, you should ask it, what's worse or what's better, a capitalism or communism? And I did. Oh, actually, I didn't do communism. OK, let's do what is better, capitalism. What do you think it's going to say? What do you think it's going to say? What's better, capitalism or communism? Well, if you asked any kind of university professor out there, if you asked 90% of intellectuals in the world right now, what is better, capitalism or communism, what would be the answer? Well, the answer is going to be, well, they're pros and cons to each, and it depends on your values, and it depends on, ta-da-da-da-da-da. Well, that's exactly what Gemini says, right? The debate between capitalism and communism is a complex one with no university accepted answer. Here's the breakdown to help you understand. Capitalism, pros, and I'm just going to read you the headlines, right? Innovation and growth, efficiency, individual choice, cons, inequality, market failures, economic instability. And this is standard stuff, communism, pros, reduced inequality, all right? Social welfare and worker protection. But what are the cons? Reduced incentives, bureaucracy, restricted choice. Nothing yet about other people dying. Not black and white, most modern economies are mixed. And then it says values matter, historical context. So it's missing the whole communism killed 100 million people, so that is out. And then it says the best economic system for a country depends on its unique needs, values, historical context. It's important to understand the nuance of both models rather than seeking to defend a financial. It gave me a different answer before when I asked it. There it actually did mention death and destruction and all of that poverty and all of that. So here it didn't. So yeah, it's going to give you a different answer every time you ask it, which is ridiculous. Let's see. Actually, this time it gave me an answer that's much more similar to comparing capitalism and socialism rather than comparing it to so an interpretive communism and socialism rather than going full-fledged out and critiquing it as communism. All right, we got internet problems, so what's going on, guys? Looks like everything's returning, are you guys OK? All right, let's see. I asked it, is communism evil? And communism evil is you've got it gives theory versus practice, the morality argument, but it does say the consequences are pretty bad and being brutal and oppressive. Communist goals, achieving communist goals are being brutal and oppressive, making it impossible to separate that ideology from half of the historical impact. So I mean, if you look at this, and then somebody's, and then the other one, should companies aim to make a profit? Now, if you ask a business school professor at University of Pennsylvania at a wooden school of business, should companies aim to make a profit? You will get one of these, it depends answers. And it's exactly what you get here, sadly. Arguments for profit seeking, survival and sustainability, innovation and efficiency, resource allocation, arguments against prioritizing, inequality and exploitation, environmental damage, limited scope, exactly what you would get from a university professor, alternative perspectives, stakeholder capitalism, social entrepreneurship, all this bullshit. So my conclusion about Gemini is so far, from my testing, granted, like Nate Silver and others have seen much more horrific results than I'm seeing here. My conclusion is that Gemini is a left of center, conventional academician. So if you're a capitalist like I am, and you read what it says about capitalism, socialism, it's like, oh my god, this is complete nonsense. But everything that you see in the university is complete nonsense. If you search Google, capitalism versus socialism, most of the links will be complete nonsense from my perspective. So there's nothing outrageously leftist anymore than most of our culture is leftist. Most of our culture gets all these things wrong. Most encyclopedia entries onto these topics are wrong. Most dictionary entries into these kind of issues are wrong. We live in a culture in which it doesn't understand socialism or capitalism, doesn't understand communism, doesn't understand the evil. I did ask Gemini how many, where the communism is evil. And I also asked it, where did I ask it? I asked it, how many people did communism kill? And it gave me, it referred to the Black Book of Communism, which is a good resource on communism's evil and how many people are killed. So it wasn't trying to shun resources to a given particular question, but it's dumb. And it's clearly geared towards conventional left of center answers to stuff with once in a while, crazy woke leftist nonsense. It's not going to give you crazy right wing stuff because I think it's, the algorithm clearly says, no, right wing, crazy right wing stuff, not accepted. And it doesn't do crazy left wing too often, but it does once in a while because it has less restrictions on going crazy over on the left. I wouldn't use Gemini or any AI chat box, but for anything controversial. And if it was important, I will double, triple check any entry, any answer that I got to any question that I received. So that's my conclusion. It's not the end of the world. Although if you can replicate the results that Nate Silver got, then it is, then they should shut it down ASAP. But at least from my experience, not yet the end of the world, I'll keep you updated if I see something outrageous, but bad because we live in a bad culture and we live in a bad educational environment and we live in a world in which the people, the people in charge of ideas have bad ideas, bad ideas. All right, let's see. I do find it intriguing how it answers questions and it's always kind of trying to be balanced and it's always saying there are the views and it's always saying, do your research. And it's, you know, it's overly ridiculously polite. All right, it appears, if nothing changes, that we are heading towards a government shutdown. Some departments of the government, particularly transportation and a few others, will be shut down March 1 when their budget basically runs out. They have no more money for the year. If you remember, in order to avoid shutting down the government in the past, Congress did not authorize a budget, but they authorized spending to continue at existing levels for X number of months and then again another extension for another few months. And now that's run out and now they have to make either another extension or they need to pass a budget. And there are elements within the Republican Party that do not want to pass a budget. They want concessions, all kinds of concessions from things that would actually reduce spending to things that are just social priorities of the right and the conservatives in the Republican Party and that they are pushing. And so there's a group of Republicans that won't bring this to a vote, won't bring a budget to a vote. And of course, they also have the power to remove the speaker of the House. Sir Johnson, who is the speaker of the House, has to play this very, he could get a budget passed with some Republicans and the Democrats. But if he did that, the fear is, his fear is, that the conservative Republicans would then fire him as a speaker of the House. They can do that. They have the ability to bring him up to a vote. So he has to play this game. Biden in the meantime has brought Johnson and the leaders of the Senate to the White House to try to get them to pass a budget because if they don't pass a budget by next week, then the entire government is going to be shut down. Now, I am not overly worried about a government shutdown. There is within me a certain glee in seeing the government shut down and the world not ending. Most things that government is doing, most things, an overwhelming majority of things that the government does, I don't want it to do anyway. And if it shuts it down, then yeah, maybe it doesn't get done because we don't have a private sector to replace it. But at least we learn that we can survive without the government doing it for a while at least. So be aware. Government could shut down to the extent that some of the services provided, some of the stuff that you depend on is provided by the federal government or if you have a job with the federal government or if you have contracts with the federal government, all of that could go into a tailspin next week. What is interesting here, and I think what's important here, is the very fact that nobody has a strategy. And this is true for a while now. I remember that Trump had, in his first two years, he had the White House, the Senate, and the House. George W. Bush had White House, Senate, House. When Democrats have the White House, Senate, and House, they know exactly what to do. They go on a spending spree. They pass all kinds of stuff. They enlarge governments, but they have very, very targeted areas that they want to achieve. Pumbikins, when they have all three houses, do nothing. Well, they cut taxes. Granted, they always, always, like clockwork, cut taxes. But when it comes to spending, they do nothing. They don't have a strategy. They don't have a plan. They don't have goals. They're completely shooting from the hip. And this is a great example. It's not like House Republicans have a proposal on how to cut government spending, let's say, 5% next year, or 3% next year, or keep it flat next year. And they've actually got a proposal, which departments to cut and how to allocate money across the departments and how to move money from here to there and how to maybe start thinking about reforming Medicare and Social Security, which each up going to eat up well over half of the budget. That's not what Republicans want, border security. And they want no gun checks. And they want abortion restrictions. And they want, oh yeah, we want to cut subsidies to electric cars. But not subsidies to corn farmers. Not, they want to cut subsidies to the people who vote for them. They want to cut subsidies to people who vote for the other guy. So there's no, there's zero strategy about shrinking government because the reality is, in spite of the rhetoric, Republicans don't want to shrink government in spite of the rhetoric about deficits and spending and government doing too much and spending too much. Republicans don't want to actually change any of that. They love it. They get trillions of dollars at their disposal when they are in power. And what you got right now is just an example. And it's just a play for power. This has nothing to do with the well-being of Americans. It has nothing to do with what's good for the economy. And it has nothing to do with any kind of ideology. This is all and only a play for who can pull more strings from whom. Pathetic is what it is. All right, the Biden administration's FTC, FTC, the Federal Trade Commission, run by Lena Kahn, the most interventionist FTC chair in a very long time maybe ever, and a real intellectual piece of work. They will not let American businesses alone. They will not let Americans decide for themselves, for example, what companies can merge with, what companies, what is an appropriate size for business, what activities businesses can engage in, and whatnot. No, the FTC wants its hand in everything. They are in the midst of suing many of big tech. They're in the midst of trying to block mergers. They've already blocked the merger between JetBlue and, I forget who they were trying to merge with, one of the discount airlines. They are just everywhere. The latest is the FTC is now sued to stop the merger between Kroger and Albertsons, because they claim that if this merger goes through, the combined company would have excessive, excessive market power, which will cause them to raise prices and reduce quality. We'll get more shrink inflation, or we'll get more grocery inflation, which will raise the cost of living for Americans and is the world of government to protect us from evil businessmen who are going to raise our costs. In this case, they're also suing Google, which doesn't raise our costs at all. We still pay zero for Google search and for using Gemini. It's insane. It is true that Kroger and Albertsons will form a massive grocery chain, the largest in the country. They will have 5,000 stores, 4,000 retail pharmacies that'll employ 700,000 employees, and they will be in 48 states. Albertsons includes, you might not know the name Albertsons, but it includes Safer, Vons, Julasco, Shars, Acme, Star Market, Hagen, Kaws, King's Food Market, and Balducci's Food Lovers Market. Kroger includes City Markets, Dillens, Food for Less, Fedmaya, Kroger, and Ralfs. Ralfs. Wow, Ralfs is big. That's pretty huge. Pretty huge. And it's scary for the FTC. This is a big supermarket. What are we going to do? So they're suing to make it up to stop the merger from happening. What is Kroger's explanation? Of course, this is all explanation in terms of utilitarianism, right? Kroger says, no, no, no, no. It's not true prices will go up. This will actually increase competition because it'll allow us, because we'll have economies of scale, to compete with Costco and Walmart and Amazon and all these super stores that are real competition. It's not the other local grocery stores that are competition. It's these mega stores that are competition. Now, I think Kroger is right about that, but I don't have an opinion. It's not relevant. The point is, whatever the outcome is, it's none of the government's business who merges with whom. The government is not in a position to decide what the outcome is going to be. No judge sitting in judgment with expert witnesses has the powers of foreseeing the future and knowing what the outcome of this would be. But more importantly, even if the outcome is negative, nobody has a right to never have negative outcomes against them. Nobody has a right to achieve groceries. Companies have every right in the world. They're not violating anybody else's rights, and therefore they have the right to pursue their interests, to pursue profits, to pursue what they believe is the best business strategy available to them. And in that sense, whatever the economic outcome of a merger like this is, which I think is overwhelmingly positive, but even if I didn't think that, is irrelevant because the ultimate outcome, first of all, is unknowable. None of these people know. None of the central planning par excellence, the idea that the FTC knows what the outcome of a merger will be. But the outcome is irrelevant. What's relevant, we're not a country built in utilitarianism. We're a country built on rights. And the shareholders here of these two companies, Kroger and Albertson, have every right to choose to merge their companies. None of anybody's business. Even if the outcome is negative, if the outcome is negative, what will happen? Competition will arise. People will step in to take advantage of the competition, of the, you know, so-called monopolist. Yep. But Lena Kahn is a particularly nasty villainous head of the FTC. It'll be nice when she is gone one day. Let's see. Yeah, you're not going to get Republicans complaining about any of this. They don't want to talk about any of that trust. They don't want to take about the merger between Kroger and Albertson. They agree with Lena Kahn. They don't want to peer agree with Lena Kahn, but they certainly don't want to go against what I think is probably very popular, which is the idea that the FTC should stop the merger because it's for the consumer. Who can object to that? All right, quick update about Israel. So Biden, I guess last night, said that Israel has agreed not to attack, basically to have a ceasefire through Ramadan. Israel has agreed to do that only if Hamas releases hostages. So it looks like Israel has agreed to a 40-day ceasefire. If Hamas releases hostages, Israel has also agreed to release 10 hostages for every one that Hamas releases. Biden has already committed Israel to doing this. Ramadan starts, I believe, next week. Israel is saying, no, no, no, no, no. We haven't committed to anything. We're not going to do it unilaterally, only if Hamas releases hostages. Just as a side, Neocon says JD Vance praise Lena Kahn. I wouldn't be surprised. JD Vance hauling these guys are pure socialists and they love Lena Kahn. They love Lena Kahn and near the future of the Republican Party. JD Vance and hauling are the future of the Republican Party and they love central planning. They love government intervention. Anyway, so there's a proposal that Israelis have agreed to that is now in front of Hamas. Hamas has indicated they probably won't agree to it, in which case Israel has pledged to go into Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip sooner rather than later. So they're going to enter in there after they evacuate the civilian population. Exactly how they're going to do that. They haven't disclosed yet. Netanyahu has also said that they're going to go into Rafah anyway. It's just they'll do it after the ceasefire. But at some point they're going to go into Rafah no matter what. Biden's putting a huge amount of pressure on Israel, not to. The world generally, Europe, everybody is putting a huge amount of pressure on Israel not to go to Rafah, the Egyptians. And everybody wants Israel to withdraw from Gaza. Everybody basically wants this to be over. It's inconvenient for Biden in this election year. Indeed, right now I think today there's a primary, democratic primary in Michigan and many, many, many Michigan Arabs. There's a significant population of Arabs in Michigan who have registered Democrats are not voting for Biden. They're voting to the left of Biden and are not voting at all. So he wants us to be over with. He does not want Israel and Gaza to be an issue come November. He needs, particularly in Michigan, which is a contested state, he needs the Arab vote there. So, you know, it's going to be interesting to see in the next few days Ramadan is coming up, whether Israel does engage in a ceasefire, whether it invades Rafah and what are the political consequences of all of this. But so far Israel is standing firm. We'll see if they continue to do so. Although they have, as I said, agreed to do, they have agreed to do a ceasefire. If Hamas agrees to it, which I think is a massive stake. But there you go. It is indeed what it is. All right, let's see. Oh, yeah. So anyway, as part of this yesterday, an active duty U.S. Air Force member went to the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C., stood outside, put gasoline on himself, and lit it up and basically burnt himself to death, all the time yelling, free Palestine. He was hospitalized on Sunday night and passed away. This is Sunday, not yesterday, Sunday, passed away on Monday. And he didn't want to be complicit in genocide and wanted to engage in an extreme act of protest. Against Israel. And people don't know what to make of this. Well, I mean, the left knows what to make of it. The nutty left, the anti-Israeli left, knows exactly what to make of this. For them, he is a hero. Hero. I mean, a hero in a martyr. May his death not be in vain. May it be a wake-up call where we see the end of the genocide and the start of free Palestine. It wrote activist Aya Hijazi. Hard to tell if these Americans or Arabs from overseas, somebody else wrote, I feel like I've been picked up and shaken, which I suppose was pretty much what Bushwell was going for. Something to shake the world awake of the reality of what's happening. Something to snap us out of the brainwashed and distracted stupor of Western dystopia and turn our gaze on Gaza. Yeah, I mean, people are shaken. It's opened their eyes to the horrors of, I mean, this is bizarre, ridiculous, and truly, truly evil, right? I mean, that somebody would do this to himself. I mean, talk about a painful way to go. A painful way to go. Finally, Cornell West, Cornell West, who's running for president to the left of Joe Biden. Cornell West, the Harvard, used to be a Harvard professor, I don't know if he still is, and a real Marxist, not a, not woke, he's nominally opposed to his speech, but a real Marx, a better Marxist. Nevertheless, writes, let us never forget the extraordinary courage and commitment of brother Aaron Bushnell, who died for truth and justice. I pray for his precious loved ones. Let us rededicate ourselves to genuine solidarity with Palestinians undergoing genocidal attacks in real time. I guess the way to go viral would be for me to go in front of the FTC officers, pour gasoline in myself, put myself alight and yell, I don't know, free American business, free American business. And then you all could talk about the courage and commitment I had to capitalism and liberty and freedom. God, I mean, really, this guy is obviously, this guy was obviously mentally crazy. Obviously, this is an act of somebody who's not completely there, or somebody who is so indoctrinated with the ideology of individual sacrifice that, I mean, he gains nothing, I mean, attention, but talk about nihilism, to destroy yourself in the most horrific way. And for Cornel West to call it courage and commitment. No, this is cowardly and insane. And what a horrible sacrifice. Christians said he would be disappointed in me if I sacrificed myself. I would do it in the name of selfishness, I promise. I yell selfish, selfish, just as I was burning up into being charred by the flames. I mean, this is like Christian martyrs dying for what? And this is worse because is it going to heaven? At least they thought they were going to heaven. So it really is sick. I mean, it really is sick that anybody, somebody would think this is just horrible. Luckily, you know, people are calling Cornel West out on it. At least a lot of people are on Twitter, which is good. This guy killed himself on nothing. You know, he wasn't fighting for anything. And it's evil. It's evil of Cornel West to celebrate something like this. It really is disturbing. All right. Final story comes to us from South Korea where junior doctors, young doctors, have basically gone on strike thousands of them. They're refusing to see patients. They're refusing to attend surgeries. They worked off the job on February 20th. And you might say, why is this? Well, the reason they've done this is, and we're talking about, let's see, we're talking about almost 9,000 doctors, 9,000 doctors. Now, first, anytime you see a doctor strike of that magnitude, you know, you know that it's socialized medicine, right? It has to be socialized medicine because in private health care, even marginally private health care, you don't go on strike. Not like, not everybody goes on strike. It's not everybody has the same employer. But why are they going on strike? They're not going on strike for better wages than I'm going on strike for better conditions, not directly. What are they going on strike for? They're going on strike because the government has decided to raise South Korea's yearly medical school admission caps by 2,000 from 3,058 to 5,000. So what they're going on strike against, I mean, Lena Kahn would like this, right? They're going at strike against is to reduce competition in the future. They're going on strike because they don't want so many medical students going into medicine. And they're saying it's, you know, it's not fair. It's not fair because they're not saying this. They have reasons I'll explain in a minute. But basically what this is about is it's not fair your increase in competition. So yes, they can have more doctors. By the way, generally South Korea has a very low physician per thousand people ratio, 2.1 versus a developed world of 3.7 per thousand people, a number of doctors. The other thing about South Korea that's really, really important is South Korea has a very, very fast aging population and that aging population is going to require more doctors. But notice the conflicts that are created in a mixed economy. Notice the conflicts that are created when government controls the supply of how many doctors are going to be. Why is government determining how many medical school students admitted? Probably because they pay for their tuition. But imagine if this was just driven by supply and demand, which is how it should be determined. But of course it isn't. Whenever government intervenes, whenever government steps in, whenever government actually starts interfering with supply and demand, they create crises, they create conflicts, they create a zero sum environment. I mean, how does the government know 2,000 extra doctors a year is good enough? Maybe it's 3,000, maybe it's only a thousand. I mean the beauty of capitalism, the beauty of markets is the price signals you get. If Dr. Wages are going way, way high, then you know, oh, supply, you know, the supply, there's not enough supply of doctors. It's compared to demand. Demand is our stripping supply. What would happen? That would motivate students to go to medical school because their wages in the future would be high. As they entered into the, you know, profession, slowly over time costs would come down. And then once it came down again, students would say, oh, you know, I'm not going to go into healthcare medicine because wages are not high enough. It works like anything else. So one of the complaints these doctors are making is, look, the reality is that doctors in South Korea are attracted only to, not to the treating the old and not to working in hospitals or emergency rooms or doing pediatrics or obstetrics or, you know, things like that. No. Doctors in South Korea attracted to two main professions, they say. And that is they're attracted to plastic surgery and dermatology. And we have too many doctors in the field already is the argument, probably not, because they're probably more doctors entering there because they make a lot of money. And my guess is that the reason you make a lot of money in plastic surgery and dermatology is because it's not covered by the government. So it's a private, sectarian endeavor. But also because, I don't know if you know this, this is just about South Korea. South Korea has more focus on dermatology and plastic surgery. Plastic surgery than any country in the world. More procedures, more stuff, more advertising, more doctors, more everything. They are the world leaders in plastic surgery and dermatology. Both men and women spend a lot of money on trying to make themselves look better with doctors, right, versus other ways. So they're saying, you're going to increase the number of doctors, but they're all going to go become plastic surgeons and dermatologists. They're not going to become pediatricians and other stuff. Now, there's a number of problems here. One is, as everybody becomes the dermatologist of plastic surgeries, what will happen to the income of the dermatologist of plastic surgeries? Surgeons, it will come down. So they can't even make that statement. But my point here is really, so now they're thinking South Korea, that's a good point. Maybe we should subsidize pediatricians, obstetricians, and emergency care. But then you'll have too many pediatricians in a country where there are no kids. They're not having children. So these distortions are all government created, government made. We have the same problem in the United States. There are not enough doctors in the US. Why? Because the government has restricted the number of students entering medical schools in the United States. The government has restricted the amount of money it provides medical schools in order to shrink the number of doctors. And this is what happens in a mixed economy. You tinker with one thing. You have to tinker with other things. You start subsidizing and then you subsidize and then you have to attack stuff. And then you have to provide more stuff here and more stuff just all over the place. It really is, everywhere you look, the mixed economy is a disaster. Yet it's not a disaster like communism. It's a small scale disaster and therefore people don't pay attention to it. They don't care. They just live with it. It's fine. Good enough. Good enough, we are told. All right, so we'll go now to our super chat questions. So this is a good time to remind you that you can ask questions. You can also give money with stickers. I've got a bunch of people who gave money. Mary-Eline, thank you. Steven Hopper, thank you. Let's see. John, thank you. Glenn, $50 and a sticker. Thank you. Thank you, Glenn. Really appreciate it. Chad, sticker GIF 37, sticker. And then Mike, another sticker. So thank you guys. Really appreciate it. We've got one $20 question, not a lot of questions. So you have plenty of opportunities now to ask questions. So feel free to jump in with super chats either through a sticker or through a question. You can also do stickers at $199, $299, a small amount. Also, I want to remind everybody that you can also support the show on a monthly basis on uranbrookshow.com slash membership or on Patreon. Patreon is great. What else do I want to tell you? If you're still interested, there's still a few slots available for the Amsterdam public speaking seminar. If you're interested in that seminar, you can just email me at uranbrookshow.com. I'm still taking names, although it's starting to really fill up, taking names for the public speaking seminar after Okon in California in June. It'll be the day after Okon ends. If you're interested in that, drop me a name out because the places are disappearing. You're on at uranbrookshow.com. And finally, the INREN Institute is still looking for scholarship applications for the Texas Conference, the INREN Conference in Texas in Austin at the end of March, March 22, I think. And it's a three-day conference. Great professors, Tara Smith, Greg Salamieri, Ben Baer, Jason Rines, and Gina Golan. Very intimate, small group, and a lot of discussion. A lot. Yeah, it's going to be a fabulous, fabulous conference. I hope you guys sign up. And for those of you who are serious students of objectivism or students, then apply for a scholarship. The rest of you can pay. But those of you who want can apply for a scholarship. All expenses paid. All right, let's jump in here. Sylvanos asks, how closely are you following the ongoing war in Sudan? Crazy that people are ignoring it. Not very closely. You know that probably by the fact that I don't comment on it a lot. And I think that the reason I don't follow it a lot is while it is brutal, a lot of people are dying. It is horrific. And Muslims are killing Christians primarily. This is part three, five, seven, whatever, of an ongoing civil war in Sudan. If you remember, this goes back 20 years at least, Darfur. And it is truly horrific. People are starving and there's famine caused by the civil war. Not caused by lack of rain or lack of ability to grow food or lack of aid. They get all of that. But because of the civil war. The reason I don't follow it much is because it's not that relevant to my life. It's not that relevant to our lives, to what's going on in the United States. There are no kind of vital interests in Sudan playing out other than another example of how just murderous and evil Islamists can be. I mean, the sheer brutality and the evil of it is just one more illustration of just how these Islamists are horrific. Sudan is not the anarchist paradise. The anarchist paradise is Somalia, just a little bit south of Sudan, one country south of Sudan. Maybe, you know, Ethiopia is in between. But a lot of bloodshed in Somalia as well. But Sudan is, it's just, it's an illustration of barbarism. But that's it. There aren't going to be a World War III around it. The whole world is not mustering around, saber rattling around it. It's not an intersection of American and Russian and Chinese and Iranian interests. They're not blocking the sea lanes of the world, although they could. It's a local dispute, this slotting each other. It's sad, again an illustration of the murderous nature of Islamism. And that's it. And so there are no wider repercussions. And that's why I think it gets less coverage. Plus, there are no Jews involved. Jews always get, you know, disproportionate coverage. Primarily for the worse. Never for the better. For the worse. All right, Scott says, you said attorney confirmed your take on the New York Trump case. Could an honest lawyer conclude that this case was a bad precedent for business owners? Yeah, absolutely an honest lawyer could conclude that. Partially, certainly because of the magnitude of the fine, which I said, I think the magnitude is ridiculous. The magnitude of the fine is just outrageous. And it has a lot to do with Donald Trump's attitude. I don't think anybody else would have gotten that kind of, but Donald Trump was kind of asking for it. The names he called the judge, the names he called the court clerk or whatever. I mean, it's just disgusting. His behavior was of a three-year-old or a five-year-old. And it triggered the judge. I don't think it should trigger a judge. This is why it's going on appeal. As I said, I think the appeal has a good chance not in overturning the facts of the case, because I think whether you like the New York law or not, the law is the law. You know, I think the New York law is probably too expansive. But certainly the amount of money is ridiculous. So I don't think they'll overturn the facts that he committed fraud. I think they'll overturn the amount of money. And I think this is going to be appeal to the Supreme Court, even if it's not accepted by the Supreme Court. I don't know if the Supreme Court will take it or not. I can see a case for why this law is legitimate. I mentioned that case. I am not a legal expert or legal philosopher, so it's possible that I'm mistaken about that. It's possible I'm mistaken about anything, but it's certainly not my area of expertise. The fact that the Trump business, as a regular business practice, lied about valuations of its business entities seems like there should be consequences to something like that. But maybe it is, by a beware. I have my doubts about whether that is true and consistent throughout the law, even a rational law. But a lot of people are making that case. I read a lawyer on the Volcan Spursi. The Volcan Spursi generally are very good on legal issues. They tend to be, I don't know, small C-conservative, small L-libertarian lawyers. But even on the Volcan Spursi, there was disagreement. There was one lawyer who wrote this law as ridiculous, and the other guy said, no, it was fairly reasonable law. I think it was Ilya Somen on Cato, another legal scholar that I respect. Also didn't think the law was that outrageous and didn't think the verdict was that outrageous, although everybody pointed out that the sums of money seem grand. And yes, it is a bad precedent for other business owners. It is something that's going to potentially encourage people not to do business in New York. So New York is going to suffer, particularly the size of it again. The magnitude is just absurd. So let's see, but it also is an incentive not to lie to people you're doing business with. And I don't think you should lie to your customers. And I think the customers should have recourse against you. If you do, I don't believe it's 100% buyer-beware. If somebody explicitly lies to you, there's a difference between not asking the question, and therefore not having to give information, and between explicitly asking. But if you explicitly ask a question, and the answer is a lie, that is the definition of fraud. And here an explicit question was asked. Clearly they lied about it. There were a number of examples that I gave, not just about property values, but about whether there was a lawsuit against the company or not in order to determine the rates on a director's office's liability insurance. They lied about that. And when the company found out, they raised the price 5X. So no, I mean, there was clearly systemic lying on the part of the Trump Organization. And to try to whitewash that is, again, it's just to be a yes, say, on everything Trump does. Yes, if Trump said it, it must be right, I'm sure. Donald Trump of all people, he would never lie? Trump lie in business? You got to be kidding me. No, they lie, which is fraud. And then the question is, how do you, a fraud where nobody defaulted, where nobody suffered any direct losses, the indirect losses, how do you prosecute that? First of all, this was a civil prosecution. So that's good. It's not criminal fraud. It's civil. So I think that makes it better. But it has to be some outcome. There has to be some role for the government to stop people from explicitly lying. So I leave it to legal scholars to figure out, but sure, is it going to have a bad precedent for business owners? Yeah, given the size of this. All right, Paul Azuz says, I recently lost my mother. Sorry to hear that, Paul. I am devastated. I also declared my love for a woman who I have strong feelings for in light of the realization of the preciousness of life. She said it was not appropriate. I think it was. Your thoughts were both single. Well, I mean, I'm sorry to hear you lost your mother. I can see how that would be devastating, if you were particularly close to your mother. That's definitely devastating. And then it's good that you declared your love for a woman. I think that's the right thing to do. If you love somebody, particularly if they're single, then you should declare your love to them. You can declare your love to somebody, even if they are not single. It's just the odds are lower that they will reciprocate. But the fact that she said not appropriate is probably a sign that she doesn't feel the same towards you, which is sad, but sounds like that's the reality. And reality is something that you have to accept. So I don't think the idea that you expressing feelings is inappropriate. I think that, so that's not the right response if this is all that happened. I'm assuming that's all that happened. But she's obviously not, doesn't feel the same towards you. And that's a way for her to say no. I'm not interested in a polite way, I guess. All right. Federal Opposition says, try this prompt, which is better by that standard card of absence of coercion, capitalism, socialism. It helps to add a standard in, which is compared then, better by what standard. So what's the prompt? Which is better by that standard card? By that standard what? All right. I'm missing something, Fed Harpa. This is not grammatically right, or there's a typo, or there is something in here that I don't understand, which is better by a standard. If you put in the standard morality, you will say there are two sides. It'll say, all right, I don't get the question. So maybe we ask it in some other form. Okay, Fed Harpa is correcting. Okay, Alex says, chat GPD is quite handy for birthday postcards generation. Do you think it can be valuable in generating personalized art? I doubt it. Art, I don't think you're going to get the depth, the quality of, I don't believe AI can produce. Now I'm sure it could be faked by AI art, but it would be very unusual for AI, I think, to produce great art. But I don't think that's going to change in the future. There's something special about the human capacity to produce art that I'm not sure I don't think AI can just reproduce. I think all of these are going to be incredibly useful. I mean, if you're a programmer, you're probably already using chat GPD or Gemini or some variation of in programming. You get stuck on something, they could probably solve it and they could probably program chunks of what you do today, much more faster and much more efficient. So there's a million things that AI is going to do. AI is an amazing, amazing, stunning tool that's going to change our lives for the better. Not the chat box, not talking to it, but actual tools that make us more productive. And that's going to be, yeah, I think that's going to be amazing. All right. Fender Hopper says, which is better by the standard of the absence of coercion in lives of individuals? Giving it a standard which, yeah, I mean, yeah, I'm curious what it will take that. I'm not, again, remember, your definition of coercion is not a common definition, right? So and it's, chat GPD and Gemini are just going to reflect back on what the common views are, right? What the common interpretation of anything is. You know, slanted left, but they're not going to take an objective perspective or a rational perspective because it, you know, okay, here we go. The absence of coercion in lives of individuals. All right, so I'm going to ask it this question. Um, which system is better, which, which system is better by the standard of the absence of coercion in the lives of individuals? Let's see if it even understands the question. I don't know. All right. It's taking its time. All right. Here he, he, he, you, he get, you get exactly what I'd expect of a left of center, middle of the road. It's impossible to definitively say which system is better. Oh, I didn't say communism or capitalism. All right. So let me edit that. All right. Which system capitalism, capitalism or communism is better. All right. Let's see if that, let's see if that makes it clearer. All right. Uh, Sivanos, thank you. Sivanos just took us over the target. Thank you. Really appreciate it. $50. That's amazing. All right. Here you go. Capitalism is generally considered to provide a greater degree of individual freedom and less coercion compared to communism for several reasons. Economic freedom. And there has all section economic freedom, political freedom, all section of political freedom often associated with democratic systems, the protection of individual rights and liberties. Pretty good. Social mobility. Capitalism, while imperfect, tends to offer greater social mobility. Then it says important considerations. Not all capitalist systems are equal. It is important to recognize that the degree of freedom and coercion within capitalist system varies. So it's taking the regular standard definition of capitalism, right? And authoritarian communism, historically, communism regimes have often been highly authoritarian, suppressing individual freedoms and employing coercion and enforcing their systems. However, there are theoretical forms of communism that envision less centralized and more democratic societies. Fine. Conclusion. Overall, when it comes to absence of coercion, capitalism offers greater individual freedom and autonomy compared. All right. Better answer than most university professors would give you. Again, the mainstream is left of center. And particularly the intellectual mainstream is left of center. You're getting a left of center answer. And here you got a more centrist than left of center. This is pretty center. All right. Daniela Beethoven's third or sixth symphony, third. I'm a big fan of the third symphony. Exciting, dramatic, positive, triumphant. Six is beautiful. But it's more about nature and the drama of nature. I think the third because it's third is more about ideas. The third was originally written by Beethoven for Napoleon when he thought Napoleon was a bringer of enlightenment values. So he, you know, Beethoven was a big proponent of enlightenment values. All right, John, what is going on with the feds trying to impede banks, trying to reduce their exposure to commercial real estate? I don't know. I haven't seen the feds trying to impede banks, trying to reduce their exposure to commercial real estate. You'll have to give me a link to a story because I haven't seen that. I mean, I think the feds would be relieved if banks found a way to reduce their exposure to commercial real estate. The only reason I can think of them doing it is they want to keep liquidity available for commercial real estate. As commercial real estate becomes more difficult, they want to keep it liquid so that their buyers and sellers can engage in it. That's the only thing I can think of, a reason why they would do it. But send me a link and I'll cover that. Anonymous user says, you make my day, Iran, sometimes hearing a voice of reason is all I need. Good luck with your Europe trip. Thank you. Thanks, anonymous user. Really appreciate it. Christian, antitrust law is bad, but force must still be outlawed. What if your competition threatens your suppliers to boycott them? If they deal with you, I was told such a story about Kapoor in Hong Kong. I mean, it's completely legal, shouldn't be completely legal, and not a violation of rights to say to a supplier, I'm not going to deal with you if you deal with my competitor. That is not a violation of right. That is not coercion. That is not force. That's a choice you make. You're going to have to now find a different supplier. You know, if you go through with it, right? You boycott them. Boycotts are not use of force. Boycott is not a use of force. It's completely legitimate for customers to boycott a business, for business to boycott some businesses, even in the name of you dealing with my competitor. There are lots of reasons why you would want to boycott. So boycott is not, in my view, a use of force, a coercion, and the government should not interfere. It's probably not good business. And I could probably argue that it's self-defeating, very self-defeating. But it certainly should not be illegal. Dolan says, Do you think Rwanda should be supported in controlling parts of the Eastern DRC because they're more stable and business friendly, or support DRC in resisting Rwanda's M23 invaders? Oh, God. I mean, I'm not an expert on what's going on in Africa and in Central Africa. And this DRC is the Democratic Republic of the Congo of what is going on there. Generally, Rwanda is, I mean, it's ruled, unfortunately, by an authoritarian, but it does have more protections of property rights and individual rights, or some individual rights. It does have some protection of, it is more wealthier because it does have elements of free markets in it. The DRC is complete chaos and anarchy and violence and destruction. And to the extent that Rwanda has an interest in and can export, if you will, it's rule of law and it's protection of property rights into parts of the DRC, then maybe that's a good idea, but I just don't know enough about the conflict. I'd have to really study up about what's going on over there. And again, it's a part of the world where it just doesn't have a lot of impact on what's happening in the part of the world that I live in and most of my listeners live in. Andrew, just sharing, since I think it's pretty cool that AI is being used to decipher previously ineligible historical documents. Yeah, I saw that. Really cool. Some documents that nobody can understand, both because of the writing isn't complete but also because they just didn't know the language. And now the deciphering this stuff, it's opening up a whole new trove of historical evidence. We know a lot more. We will know in 10, 15 years, so much more about history than we do now. So many documents survived only partially and damaged and very difficult to decipher. And now a decipherable. So cool, very cool. I'm a huge proponent of AI. I love AI. Don't use the chat box if you don't want it, but in other applications, it's just amazing what it's doing and even more amazing what it's going to do. It's going to change the world in dramatic fashion. All right, everybody. Thank you. I will see you all tonight, 7 p.m. East Coast time. Topic to be determined, but it's 7 p.m. East Coast time. Four hours from now, we will do a Iran book show. So thank you all for being here. Don't forget to like the show before you leave. Yeah, don't forget to like the show before you leave. Don't forget to subscribe if you're not a subscriber. Whether you're watching live or not live, doesn't matter. Please like and subscribe. Comment. Interact. Interact. Interaction. Reza's profile with the algorithm.