 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 Sunday night. I know. It's a little unusual for me to be doing a show on Sunday, but I figured I hadn't done many shows this last week. And wanted to make it up to you. We'll be back on schedule tomorrow for about a week, and then we go off schedule, and then we go on schedule, then we go off schedule. October is going to be a mess. October will be mostly off schedule because I've got a massive travel schedule in October. So there's a really, really is a good chance. We'll be, anyway, we'll be doing as many shows as I can do, but there won't be many. All right, so today is a makeup show, if you will. So we are going to be catching up on some news items from this last week so that tomorrow the new show can be new and fresh, and we don't have to kind of make up for what is for the past. Anyway, I'm a little jet lagged, so if I'm a little slow, mumbling, non-coherent, it's jet lag, right? I flew in from Europe last night, so not completely here. All right, so we're going to talk about Armenia and Azerbaijan. We'll talk about Fox News, the retirement of Murdoch. We'll talk about Kendi. Kendi, haven't talked about Kendi in a long time. It's been a long time. And then what else are we going to do? Yeah, something about nuclear power and Microsoft, something like that. We'll talk about that as well. But then, oh, and then, where's Apollo Zeus? Is Apollo Zeus here? He'll probably miss this. But then I'm going to do a review of the novella that I promised to do for a long time now. So finally, we'll get to it. So we're going to review the novella and then what else? We're going to review Star Trek and Community. So we've got an episode of Star Trek, an episode of Community. And then all I think is left at that point is, and you guys will have to correct me if I'm wrong, is the album, the album, which I started listening to, but I haven't listened to enough of it to be able to do a review yet. So let me just, I'm looking for something here. I'll be right with you guys. I don't know where that's disappeared to. It was there. I saw it earlier. Anyway, yeah. So we'll do a bunch of reviews. And don't forget, oh yeah, we've got John's album review, which I'll try to do next week. But for now, I think I'm caught up with almost all the reviews. I'm still looking for something. And it looks like I can't find it. So I'm going to give up in one second. All right. So yeah, if anybody knows Meribens, tell her to come on over, because it's her novella that I'm going to be reviewing. She might want to hear this. Of course, she can hear this also on a recording, but if she's live. And Apollo Zeus has been asking me about this nonstop. So maybe you can ask Apollo Zeus to come over as well to hear the review. All right. Let's start with the situation that's been in the news quite a bit. The situation in Armenia and Azerbaijan. And so I'm going to go through a little bit of the history on this, but it's only going to be the history from the last, what, 30 years. Because this region, this history, goes back to pre-Roman times. I mean, this history, ancient history. These are some of the most ancient tribes ever. And the conflict there has existed for hundreds of years. And I don't know all the details about that. I don't know much about that. But so we're just going to look at the modern time, because God, they hate each other there from before, from a long, long, long, long time ago. So all right. So I'm going to show you a map in a second. Let's see. Let's do the map. Where's the map? All right. So this is a map. Azerbaijan. You can see Azerbaijan on the right is the Caspian Sea. You can see it to the north is Russia and Georgia. I'll be in Georgia in just a few weeks. I'll be in Tbilisi right near this war zone. You can see that to the west is Turkey and to the south is Iran. And these Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan are considered the southern Caucasus. So the border between Georgia and Russia and between Azerbaijan and Russia are the Caucasus Mountains, really, really beautiful mountains. You can go skiing there. There's some beautiful wine regions in the valleys below those mountains. But so this is a very ancient region. You know, Alexander the Great was here. The Romans were here, of course. This is a region that's been contested. It is the bridge. It's one of the bridges between Europe and Asia. It's not actually clear if Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia are the Asia or the Europe. I think they consider themselves Europe. But geographically, they're right on the border. They could be either one. And all of them, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, were all occupied by the Soviet Union. So all were part of the Soviet Union. Also, one more thing important to note. And this is I'm giving you a history from before 30 years ago. But anyway, Azerbaijan is important and strategically important because Azerbaijan has huge reservoirs of oil and natural gas. Indeed, really the first oil that was found and started to be refined at about the same time as Rockefeller in the 19th century, as discoveries are happening in the US, and Rockefeller is starting to refine oil in the US. Discoveries are made in Azerbaijan. And it leads the Russian Empire to occupy this territory and to value it enormously. Azerbaijan is, again, wealthy with oil and natural gas. Azerbaijan is ruled by a ruling family. It is ruled by what you will a dictator. And the family rules over the country. A few other aspects are interesting. Azerbaijan is Muslim. It is occupied by Turkish Muslims. So Muslim of one of the Turkish tribes that moved into this area, I don't know, after 1,000 AD, something like that, maybe a little earlier. What's interesting is that a significant percentage of the Iranian population are Azeri of the same tribe as Azerbaijan, which creates tension constantly between Iran and Azerbaijan because Iran is always worried that the Azeris have more loyalty to Azerbaijan than they do to Iran. So that creates tension. And there's been quite a bit of tension on the Iranian-Azerbaijani border recently, for other reasons as well, which we'll get to. So Azerbaijan is a Muslim country. But it is completely secular. The dictators in Azerbaijan are secular. And there is no Sharia law. There's no religious law. When I was in Azerbaijan, I've been there once, one of the few Muslim countries in the world that have gone and spoken in, in Baku. You can see Baku on the map there. And you can walk in the streets, and you can go to beaches, and there are women in bikinis. And there are women in full-fledged burkas, completely covered, but almost always tourists coming in from the Gulf states. So Azerbaijan is a secular Muslim country. OK, Armenia. Armenia is, of course, Christian. It's Orthodox Christian. The Turks, many Armenians live in Turkey. The Turks, of course, accused of genocide against Armenians, which has created forever significant tensions between Armenia and Turkey. Armenia does not have, as far as I know, natural resources. Neither does Georgia. Neither of those countries have any oil. All the oil is in Azerbaijan. Now, you can see the importance of this area. It sits between Russia and Iran and Turkey, three powers that would like to dominate the region more broadly. Turkey should and has been a natural ally to Azerbaijan. They're both of the same ethnic group, if you will, tribe. But the Israelis are quite independent, and they don't want to be under the Turkish thumb. Iran would like to have influence here, but they don't have influence as Azerbaijan, because Azerbaijan is secular, even though it's Shiite Muslim, the same as the Iranians, and the same as the tribe that is common in Iran, the Azeri tribe. They don't have influence because of its secular nature. And, of course, Armenia feels a little isolated. It's closer to Georgia in many respects than it is to any of its other neighbors. It's not close to Iran. It's not close to Turkey. It's not close to Azerbaijan. But yet, they're a different tribe. When I go there, I ask people, what's that that's between Georgians and Armenians? And they look at me like I'm insane. Well, if you go back X number of hundreds or thousands of years, we are completely different tribes. There's no relation. Anyway, that's the nature of the world in which we live. Anyway, when the Soviet Union broke up, this stimulated a conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia. In 1988, before the Soviet Union broke up, I think Armenians living in an area which is called Nagorno-Kababaka. Something like that. Nagorno. We'll call it Nagorno. Nagorno is this area in red that you see in the middle. Between Azerbaijan and Armenia, that's the Nagorno area. The Armenians living in this area demanded the transfer from being part of Azerbaijan under the Soviet Union to being under Armenia under the Soviet Union. So they wanted to switch provinces from the Azeri province to the Armenian province, but all under the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union had these particular province. Ukraine was one of those so-called, what do you call it, autonomous or blast autonomous regions. So they demanded this. And as the Soviet Union collapsed, tensions grew into an outright war. When fighting finally ceased in 1994, the Armenians had captured everything that you see here in pink and red. So not just the Nagorno area, Nagorno-Kababaka, but also seven other provinces that had belonged to Azerbaijan. And indeed, a million people, a million Azeris, a million Muslims, were displaced from that area, left for Azerbaijan. And 700,000 Armenians who lived in Azerbaijani territory moved to Armenia. So this was a status quo in 1994 until 2020. Although during that period, intermittently, there would be clashes on the border, Azerbaijan always claimed the Nagorno area and all that pink area surrounding it as their area. They claimed it as Azerbaijani territory. Now, if you go to Azerbaijan, they will tell you that Armenian slaughter Azeris left and right. If you go to Armenia, the Armenians will tell you Azeris slaughter Armenians left and right. In other words, again, and they can list the massacres going back hundreds of years. So I have no idea who's right and who's wrong in the sense. But I'm just telling you the way it is. So I don't actually haven't studied history enough to be able to do a kind of a moral analysis. But just to let you know what's going on, because it's in the news and maybe you're curious. Anyway, so there were repeated skirmishes across the border. In April 2016, there were four days of intense fighting at the line of separation between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Hundreds were killed on both sides. But the border didn't really change. That all changed in September 2020. September 2020, a full-fledged war was started on the 27th of September, six weeks of bloody armed conflict in which the Azerbaijanis defeated the Armenians and basically took all the pink areas surrounding Nagoro, all became part of Azerbaijan. And then this red area stayed affiliated with Armenia. And there was a corridor that in the peace agreement they agreed to facilitate transport between Armenia and this Nagoro region, which is now fully surrounded by Azerbaijan territory. The six-week war was brutal. Ultimately, the Russians negotiated a ceasefire. We'll talk about the Russians in a minute. And a lot of people died. Thousands and thousands of people died. And this was a status quo until last week. Now, it is worth noting that one of the reasons that Azerbaijanis won the war in 2020 was the fact that they used very cleverly and made really good use of Turkish and Israeli drones. It was the first war, really, where drones were used extensively. And you can see, of course, now in Ukraine, how the Ukrainians are using drones. And the Russians are using drones extensively in that war. And one has a sense that future wars are going to be very much driven by drone technology. And that brings us to just one other point, which relates to a question that Maximus asked. Israel is one of the major arms supplies to Azerbaijan. And it has very good relations with Azerbaijan, which actually creates tension between Iran and Azerbaijan, because Iran is upset by the relationship between Israel and the Azeris. It has also been rumored that Israel uses Azerbaijan, if you will, a base for special forces, maybe for drones, maybe even if they attack the nuclear power plants in Iran, they would actually fly planes into Azerbaijan and fly them into Iran from there. So there is a lot of cooperation between Azerbaijan and Iran. Maximus asked in a super chat the day before yesterday, or yesterday, whenever it was, what I thought of that. And my view is, look, Israel is strategically isolated. It is surrounded by enemies. It's in peace with many of those countries. But the peace is not a real peace. The peace is a contingent peace. It's a temporary peace, in my view. And it is surrounded. And Iran is a major threat. And therefore, to be able to have good relations with. And Turkey, of course, is one day this and one day that. It used to be a very close ally of Israel under Erdogan. It has distanced itself and really was hostile to Israel for a while now. It's close again. But Turkey cannot be trusted. Israel needs allies with regard to its basically ongoing war with Iran. Azerbaijan serves that purpose. It has a border with Iran. It is close to Iran. It needs Israeli expertise and weapon systems. It needs Israeli technology for a variety of different things. And there's actually a regular direct flight from Baku to Tel Aviv. So I think, overall, it's good for Israel. I have no problem with it. It's a dictatorship. But look, Israel is not in a position, like America. It's like a superpower is, to decide who it's allies and who it's not, choose and pick between. Israel basically has to take what it's given, is to take whatever opportunities it has in the region and establish a relationship with whoever it can, particularly as long as it's at war with its neighbors and particularly in this case, as long as it's at war with Iran. So Azerbaijan is an ally of Israel. Israel needs allies, particularly given that Azerbaijan has this border with Iran and sits to the north of it. Let's see. So that's the war in 2020. Anyway, last week, Azerbaijan basically invaded and basically took Nagorno with little fight. I mean, some fight, there were casualties. But then Nagorno's basically realized the people, the militia, they basically realized they couldn't defend it. They gave up. And what is happening right now, and this is the kind of ethnic cleansing, if you will, that happens in this region regularly, is that Armenians in Nagorno are basically packing up and leaving. They are exiting the region, and they are moving into Armenia, the proper. The Azeris are telling them, please stay. We won't discriminate against you. We're not going to massacre you. We're not going to kill you all. And the Armenians in Nagorno are saying, we don't trust you, and they're leaving. So we'll see how many leave, but there are suspicions that all 120,000 of them are actually going to leave. This is a very mountainous area. People, these families have probably been living in the same villages, in the same buildings for hundreds of years. And because of the fact that another tribe has taken over the territory around the village, they are going to leave the ancestral homes and move to be with other people that are in the same tribe as they are in Armenia. I mean, the whole thing is ridiculous, and absurd, and stupid, and the similarities between these people far exceed the differences between them. But history, they won't let go of history. They won't let go of tribal identity. They won't let go of all the grievances of the past, and this is what you get. You get mass dislocation of people from their homes, which is sad. Anyway, this will be interesting to talk to my Georgian friends when I'm in Tbilisi to get their sense of what happened here and what's going on. Notice that Azerbaijan has territory to the west of Armenia, because that's a Muslim area. So it's part of Azerbaijan, and even though Armenia can kind of cut it off, this is a weird part of the world. It's a Balkanized part of the world. It's just like the Balkans, where every little tribe needs its own little country for its tribe with nobody else. I mean, it's absurd and ridiculous. This is the sense in which the human race is still very, very young. The human race still has to grow up and discover, I don't know, individualism, the value of the individual, the significance of the individual, the place of the individual, and abandon tribalism. As long as we cling to tribalism, we cling to barbarism, we cling to primitivism, we will continuously descend into violence and descend into digression, instead of progress, regression, regression. All right, so that's what happened. There was a war. The Azeris, one, they control all their old Azeri territory, including a section of Armenia. The people in that section are going to move into Armenia, and they're going to abandon this territory for the sake of the Azeri tribe. At least that's what it looks like right now. Whoops, I didn't mean to do that. You don't have to see the face of Ubud-Modok. OK, that took a long time, much longer than I expected. But anyway, I should remind you that we do have Super Chat open. I do take questions on anything. Please try to do some $20, $50, $100 questions or something so far, not much is being raised. We didn't do many shows this last week, so you guys should be flush with money that you didn't spend on Super Chat questions over the week. So please consider supporting the show this evening, value for value. There are 72 people. They're $10 each, and we're doing phenomenally well. You can use a sticker to support the show, and of course, you can ask questions. All right, let's quickly talk about Ubud-Modok. Ubud-Modok retired officially from his empire last week. He is worth something like $22 billion, and he's the 31st richest man in the United States, and 75th richest man in the world. That's pretty amazing, the $21 billion, $22 billion only gets you 31st in the US. That's insane. I remember being a billionaire counted for something. Now every Joe Schmo is a billionaire. Anyway, Rupert is 92 years old. He's been working until now. He's just retiring now. He is passing on his media empire, or a lot of the media empire. Certainly, Fox News Corp to his son, Laughlin-Modok. Again, there's a long history here. I just want to focus on one element of this. Modok, of course, controls Fox News and has been the mind, the power behind Fox News. And I'd say over the last, what is it? Over the last three years, Modok has been basically engaged together with Fox News in a campaign not 100%, not full on, but in a somewhat of a campaign to deny Donald Trump the presidency in 2024, to deny Donald Trump the Republican nomination for the presidency in 2024. I mean, you could tell this by a positive treatment, the Santas, and then for a while there of Vivek. They really didn't have Trump on many of the shows, with exception of Hannity. Generally, you had a Fox News that seemed to be supporting other candidates and was really kind of abandoned Trump, or at least trying to get the Republican Party to abandon Trump. Not too aggressively, not too strongly, but somewhat. I mean, Modok himself has just been trying desperately over the last three years to find an alternative to Trump. I mean, recently he's approached Glenn Yonkins from Virginia to try to get him to jump into the race, because the Santas has been failing with the hope that maybe Yonkins can beat Trump. Fox has also been committed to the stories for years now. Did it was an opinion leader? Did it basically shaped the right? That what was popular on Fox was popular among Fox viewers, that Fox was at the helm of shaping the views of right wing America? Well, the last three years have proved the opposite. And I think Modok's leaving has proved the opposite. It's like a gay wine end, although I don't want to give Modok that much credit. But again, modern moment where Gail Wine End in the Fountain had discovered that he didn't really run the newspaper. Then in some sense, the mob wrote the newspaper. Elsewhere, Tui managed the newspaper. Modok has discovered that he doesn't really control Fox, that Fox's fate is not in his hands, but it's in hands of the viewers. That the viewers are now being shaped by Fox, that Fox is being shaped by its viewers. Taka Kosoz's departure didn't change anything. Taka is a biggest success off of Fox, and he was at Fox. The viewers are backing Trump in spite of Fox, not wanting them to back Trump. The viewers are holding views that Fox rejects. Doesn't matter. Fox has become, and I talked about this when I talked about Taka a few months ago, Fox has become basically a channel to reflect back to the Republican base or the Republican base once. It's not a leader. It's not the educator. It's not the decision maker. It's just a reflecting pool. It just reflects back. So Modok's departure from Fox, I think, is an important moment. I think, to some extent, Fox is giving up recognition that it is lost, that it cannot control the right. Trump is going to win the GOP nomination. It's hard to see how he doesn't. And it basically makes Trump, I guess not surprisingly, the most powerful person on the right by far. And Fox and everybody associated with Fox, a step behind, a follower, all right? It will be interesting to see what happens. It will be interesting to see how Lachlan manages Fox. If there's a shift, if Fox jumps, I'm sure they will. But the extent to which Fox will jump on the bandwagon. Now, look, I'm not saying Fox has been anti-Trump. He's been very careful not to be too anti-Trump. But most of that has to do with the fact that it doesn't want to piss off its audience than in terms of what they actually believe of the different hosts and the people running Fox, who clearly were anti-Trump, or at least Modak was anti-Trump. All right, two quick other quick topics. Kendi. You remember Kendi? We talked a lot about Kendi in 2020 during BLM. Kendi, of course, is Ibrahim Solani, Kendi. I mean, I didn't realize this, but that's not his real name. His real name is Boring Henry Rogers. But he changed it to Ibrahim Zolani Kendi, or Ibrahim X. I guess trying to mimic Malcolm X. Anyway, Kendi, as we all know him, Kendi was, of course, made famous during the BLM riots as the guy who had written the book about anti-racism as the person who basically had declared that basically all whites were racist. It was just implicit in their being white that there was no real way not to be racist if you were white. And if you weren't actively an anti-racist, which meant admitting the fact that you were racist and doing everything to grovel and groveling to kind of undo the racist image. And if you remember, I did a whole show, some of you remember, some of you knew, but I did a whole show on Kendi's book and the whole phenomenon of anti-racism. Anyway, Kendi was rewarded for his, I guess, let's say, brilliance and success in labeling all white people as racist. He was awarded by Boston University and who hired him, he was in Florida at the time, who hired him, and established a center, a center for the study of racism. So it was an anti-racist research center, or actually it was called the Center for Anti-Racist Research. Now remember, anti-racist doesn't mean what the word actually says. Anti-racist doesn't mean being anti-racist. I'm anti-racist. Most of you are anti-racist, right? We hate racists. We think racism is barbaric and privative and really horrific. Anti-racist is a racist ideology that basically claims, it's an anti-white racist ideology, that claims that all whites are responsible, all whites are racist, and all whites are responsible for the evils of slavery and discrimination in the past. And therefore, they should ask for forgiveness and he has a whole political agenda, which is absurd. But he's become famous, right? He started the center, the center for the anti-racist studies. Ooh, so Raghav Brek says, Armenia is apostolic, not orthodox. I have no idea what apostolic means. I'll have to look it up later. But, OK, sorry, so they're not orthodox. That would make them one difference between Nam and the Georgians and the Russians. Oh, I forgot to talk about Russia. We forgot Armenia and Azerbaijan. I'll get to that in a minute, because it is an important point that should be added. Anyway, Kendi raised a huge amount of money for the center. He also became hugely successful himself. He has an ESPN series. He has children's books about racist ideas in America. He is a corporate guru, kind of a trainer that goes in and helps out with DEI and everything else. Huge. Anyway, this last week, Kendi has announced that he's made the, quote, painful decision to reduce the program's size and mission in an effort to guarantee its future. In other words, he's running out of money. In spite of the fact that he raised $55 million, most of that in 2020, he's not able to raise new money and somehow he's burnt through a lot of this money, this other money. He's got real problems. He's fired, supposedly, about half of his staff. The university itself has announced that it's conducting an inquiry into complaints from staff members, which include questions about the center's management culture and the faculty and staff's experience with it, as well as where the hell did the money go? Or, as The New York Times puts it, grant management practices. Of the $55 million, $5 million was raised just this last year, which is a lot of money. And yet, they have to fire half the people when there's an investigation. This whole idea of anti-racist, the idea of DEI, a lot of these ideas, Kendi himself, maybe less, what do you call it, viewed positively as they were a few years ago. He is less of a center of attention. I think the whole BLM phenomenon, at least for now, has dissipated. I told you this would happen under Biden, but it's dissipated somewhat. He has been criticized. His work has come under attack, not just from conservatives, but also from other liberal academics who find his work distasteful and wrong and arbitrary and racist. And it's much more difficult, supposedly, for him to raise money in this environment. So he has a problem with expenses. Anyway, the university is looking into it. It'll be interesting to see what they discover and what they find out about the financing. DEI is in a decline. Hiring for DEI position has declined by 20% from its height a couple of years ago. Just the general attitude in the country, I think, has shifted on these issues. I think mostly that's good. Some of that might be bad, but mostly it's good. Mostly getting rid of DEI, getting rid of the focus on race. The Supreme Court's recent decision about affirmative action at the universities will have an impact. But generally, the corporate attitudes and other attitudes are changing, and Kendi is less sought out, I think, as a guru than he has been in the past. And that is good. I hope the center closes, ultimately. The center is a really bad, bad, bad idea. And it'll be interesting to watch to see what happens and whether Kendi survives at this anti-racism center. All right, finally, a story out of Microsoft. Microsoft has decided to invest heavily in nuclear energy. They want a fleet of nuclear reactors, small nuclear reactors, powering new data centers. And they're hiring people from traditional nuclear industries to get it done. I mean, Microsoft is going, looking around. Nobody's doing nuclear. Nobody's getting it done. Bill Gates has an investment. He has an investment. There's an investment. But it's not happening on scale, and the regulators are still slow. Microsoft has decided to put its financial muscle and its reputation behind nuclear energy. And this is an enormously positive step. I'm reading this from a post on Twitter by Mike Mark Nelson, who writes about energy issues. The problem, why are they investing in nuclear energy? They don't have, there is no long-term stable power, clean or otherwise, that can power the expansion of the data centers that are being built and being created all around the country. Data centers, big data centers, consume huge amounts of electricity. And you can't fuel them with wind or solar. I mean, that just falls apart. You always need, even if you use some wind or solar, then you need something to back them up. And the fact is that very little investment has gone in to building new, in much of the country, new fossil fuel, fueled power plants that have to back up solar and wind. And of course, the solution here is nuclear. Now, so they and Amazon and anybody else who is building massive data centers are going to have to figure this out. They're going to have to be able to get these micro-reactors. And they know that the investment going on right now in so-called clean energy is just not going to do it. And there's too much backlash against fossil fuels. So what that's trying to do is invest heavily in nuclear, which is both, quote, green, and is the technology today to make it affordable, to make it easy, and to have small plants that can just be used for these data centers. So I think this is incredibly exciting. It's thrilling to see a company the size of Microsoft with its resources, its innovation, its attitude of getting things done involved in this. And anyway, so here we are. Let's hope that this is part of a general boon to the nuclear industry and increases investment in the industry. All right, let me say one more word about, or more than one word, but a little segment about Armenia and Azerbaijan, which is important because it relates to Ukraine and relates to Russia. So in the past, at least since 1994, Russia has viewed Armenia as its major ally in the Balkans. Certainly since 2008, Russia has been in conflict with Georgia. Russia invaded Georgia in 2008 and took a couple of its provinces under its own control. This was because of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Russia has its sites on the entire area. Putin would love to reintegrate Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan into a greater Russian empire, into resurrected Soviet Union. He's done that with parts of Georgia, but he stopped short. But in this area, his ally had been the Armenians. And the reason is quite clear, the Georgians is in conflict with, Russia is in conflict with. The Azeris are Muslims and are much closer to Turkey than they would be to Russia. But Russia would like to be friends with the Azeris because they would like to have access to the natural resources the Azeris have, like to have some influence over it. And the Russians would like to have some border with Turkey and would like to be able to contain Turkey. They worry about Turkey. Armenia is perfectly positioned to do that. Armenia is perfectly positioned to do that. So Russia has been Armenia's ally. Russia supplied Armenia with arms. It has kept peacekeeping troops in the various parts of Armenia that were under conflict. But it has provided diplomatic cover for the Armenians. It helped the Armenians negotiate the peace deals with the Azeris in the past. But since 2020, the Armenians have been furious with the Russians because the reality is that Azerbaijan, with Israeli and Turkish weapons, kicked the Armenian. But they defeated them thoroughly. And it turned out that the Armenian Russian weapons, as we're discovering in Ukraine, were not very good. And now, last week, the Russians didn't do anything. Indeed, for weeks now, the Armenians have been complaining that the Russians are destructed in Ukraine, and are not helping them out at all, given Azeri aggression. I mean, this whole Azeri victory here makes Putin look weak again. An ally of Putin's has been defeated. It probably makes a lot of Putin's other allies question whether their alliance with him is worthwhile. This is primarily relevant, I think, in Central Asia, where anywhere from Kazakhstan, to Kazakhstan, to all the stands over there, have always been aligned to one extent or another with Russia. Well, now they might have second thoughts. And there's a good chance that their allegiance is going to shift away from Russia and towards the other player in the region that has been chipping away at Russian influence for decades now, and that is China. So I'd say that the defeat of the Armenians has real geopolitical consequences, particularly to the competition between Russia and China for influence over Central Asia. And remember, Central Asian countries are resource-heavy, huge amounts of resources. Resources that Russia and China would love to have control over. All right, so those are the news. I'll be back to regular news starting for tomorrow. All right, we are way, way, way, way, way behind on the super chat, so I'd really, really appreciate it if people would step up, ask a question, or just support the show with a sticker. But we should be doing better than what we are, we're way behind on a regular newsy show, Nevermind, an evening show, which is going to go on for probably an hour and a half, value for value. Remember that general principle, pay for what you get? Or if you're getting value, if you believe you're getting value, please show some support. All right, let's shift orientation and talk about a couple of TV shows and a novella. Let's start with Shazbud, where I have to find. Shazbud asked me to review two TV shows. One was Star Trek, season three, episode 15, called Let That Be Your Last Battlefield. I mean, I love watching these old episodes of Star Trek. It really reminds me how philosophical they try to be, how apathetic and ridiculous a lot of the special effects, makeup, and everything else was, how far we've come, even the acting, how far we've come in terms of all those things. But they really try to be deep. They really try to take on important topics. And this one, they're taking on two issues. One is kind of the absurdity and ridiculousness of racism. They discover a species where they're half black and half white. And some of them are black on the right side and some of them are black on the left side. And just absurdity of people discriminating and everything based on that. And the second aspect of it was what hate does to people and the destructiveness of hate. And there's a lot of silliness in this episode and a lot of cliches in the episode. And it doesn't go very deep on the racism issue. It could have gone in a variety of different ways. We never really get any kind of in-depth information about what's going on on this bizarre planet where this is happening. I also find their ability to travel to the far reaches of the galaxy within milliseconds pretty amusing, even for the warp speed. But anyway, and of course, the half white, half black is so obviously paint on somebody's skin. Again, the makeup is second rate, third rate, fourth rate. I don't know. But that's modern standards of filming that we have today. But so what happens in the episode is you've got these two characters that are like this, that are hate each other. And they've been chasing each other. I guess the one would be chasing the other for 50,000 years. And then when they finally go back to the planet, the two, the people with the black on the one side and people with the black on the other side, have slotted each other. There's nobody left on the planet. Everybody's dead. And these two guys, their solution to that is to beam themselves onto this planet and kill each other. So add to the bloodshed. So the hate is deeper than any practical implementation, any idea of living your own life for yourself. It's all, everything was motivated. And you probably know people like this. But their entire life is centered on hatred of the other. Hatred of somebody, hatred of something. They focus almost no energy on their own life, on making it better, on pursuing real values. They're just consumed by hatred. And it eats them up. And it destroys them. And it makes them zero. And what you have here is basically people like that and the episode criticized them. It's nice to see a TV show that not every episode, but a lot of the episodes, take on, granted somewhat superficially, but take on at least thought provoking philosophical themes and issues about hatred, about racism. There's also the point in which they're being challenged about who controls the ship. And this alien takes control of the Enterprise, cooks, ship, the Enterprise. And Captain Cook basically says, look, you either give me back control over the ship, now it's only the navigation that this alien has control over. Or I'm going to self-destruct, literally start a self-destructive sequence for the ship. Now, he couldn't be bluffing who knows if it was real, but that's an interesting idea that he's willing to do that and is willing to play chicken with this alien in order to gain control. But I think the message is you can't give in to thugs. You can't give in to brutes. And sometimes playing chicken is your only route out. So the old Star Trek, the original Star Trek are always fun to watch. They're always interesting. I think Captain Cook was a great character. Of course, Spock and the Doctor and the conflicts between them were always interesting. It's just the fact that you set up a scenario where you've got reason versus emotion is even philosophically problematic. It's super interesting. And you can do a lot with that. And I think the series does a lot with it. Spock at some point tells the two people who hate each other. He says, in our planet, we used to hate each other, too. And the way we solved this is by rejecting emotions and making all decisions based on reason and completely getting rid of emotions. Now, that's, again, not the right solution. But this idea of reason as your standard, logic as your standard of truth, logic as the standard for action, again, has been very, very powerful. All right, let's see. OK, so I was about to ask for one other TV show. And that's the comedy community, which I've seen here. And they have seen episodes. I've never really watched a show. And this was an episode 14 from season 2 called Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. It was funny. It was entertaining. I know that people who like the show, I know a lot of people like the show. And that it is pretty entertaining and pretty funny. I think my son was a fan of the show. And it was on live years and years ago. In this particular episode, there was a kid who is being made fun of constantly, Fat Neil. I think he's called Fat, Fat, Fat, Fat. And he's super sensitive. And he's super, you know, the group in the community thinks he might commit suicide. And he loves Dungeons and Dragons. So they land up playing Dungeons and Dragons with him. And through that, ultimately, he ultimately wins. And that makes him feel better and feel part of the group better. And I think it improves his. He achieves a value. An important part, I think here, it's somewhat philosophical. There's some issues about psychology. I think the most important point of the episode was, and these are hard episodes for me to analyze, because the content is not that rich at the end. But they are playing this advanced Dungeons and Dragons with this kid with the intent of letting him win. Because if they let him win, maybe he'll feel better. But all the attempts to let him win fail. And indeed, they're not going to have the result they hope for anyway, because you don't get self-esteem from people letting you win. And the twist at the end is that he wins because of his own idea, his own merit, his own success. And that is what actually gives him the self-esteem to kind of improve his life at that point, to step out of his depression, of his self-pity, and actually do something. So the episode's a good episode. It's funny. It's entertaining. I enjoyed it. So that's community season 2 episode 14, Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. Too bad Shazbot isn't here to ask any follow-ups that he might have. There's Apollo Zeus. He made it, just in time, too. All right, again, way behind. Sony wants to ask it. Not a single $20 question yet today. I think it's the first show ever in the history of the Iran Book Show that we haven't had a $20 question an hour into the show. I don't know what's going on. All right, finally, let's talk about Romantics, which is a novella by Meribens. I don't know if she's here. Today or not, but she's often on the chat. Megan Meribens, right? Is that the name? Did I get the name wrong? Apollo will correct me if I got it wrong. Anyway, there she is. Meribens is there, so she's listening, so the pressure is on. All right, Meribens has written a novella. The novella basically is a longish short story, something like that. And so it's a long short story, but it still, I think, qualifies as a short story. I read it pretty quickly on my flight back to Puerto Rico yesterday. I think it's yesterday. Whoa. We just got $500 Australian from Justin. Thank you, Justin. That'll improve our standing in terms of Super Chat quite a bit. All right, how do I do this review? So let me say a few things about the novella. It's really well written. I mean, it's very creative. It's interesting. It's interesting both from science fiction, kind of scientific, not science fiction so much as a scientific innovation perspective. But it's also interesting just in terms of the characters. And I can't say there's really a plot, but in terms of what happens, kind of the story, what happens in the story. So it's quite innovative. It really is a psychological drama. And it uses kind of technology as a means to facilitate the drama. But really it's a psychological study of a narcissist. Psychological study of a narcissist. So I'm not going to do justice to the set up. And I don't know how much I should give away. I don't think I should give a lot away. Because I think you guys should read it. It's on the Kindle. I think you can download it. I can't remember how much it costs. Maybe it's free. I can't remember. Maybe it can probably tell us in a little bit since she's on. It's well written. It's interesting. It deals with funnily enough. It's one of the only stories I've ever read that deals with objectivists. It's about a woman who's super smart, super, I'd say, yeah, super smart, super with it. I mean, there's one flaw, which I'll mention in a minute. The heroine is beautiful, sexy, smart, she's an engineer. And yeah. And it seems like a one of action takes control of what's going on, takes control of what's going on. The anti-hero, if you will, the male. The no, which is interesting, and I don't think I'm giving too much away, the no positive, well, completely positive male figures in the novella. It really is about this man who is a narcissist and this woman who he, to the extent a narcissist can love, loves. It's got an interesting use of a chip in the brain that records and stores memories, which is interesting and probably realistic, ultimately, to have a chip in your brain that reinforces your memory capabilities. The book is called Un, Slash, Rom, Slash, Antics. Un, Romantics. What else? So the one, OK, so I'm going to say the one criticism I have of the plot, and that is I think the woman, what's unbelievable about the plot is, and I'm going to try not to give away too much, but is the woman is the way she's portrayed is too good to have been fooled by the main narcissistic character. I just don't see it. I don't see how she fell for him, how she was with him. So a character, to some extent, needs to be fleshed out to bring out that weakness, whatever that weakness is for him and maybe for the other guy that makes a fall for him. Because otherwise it's just too, he's so bad. And she's so strong, at least in the novella, that I can't see them together. And yet it's important that they are together. It's important that she has a hard time with the breakup. Why would she have a hard time with the breakup? He's so bad, right? So that to me is the main issue. There's actually, you know, there's a character in the novella, CEO of the Iron Man Institute. He gives a talk in the novella. And it's not me. Because the topic is not one of my topics. So I don't think it's even supposed to be me. But it's a female. It's a woman who's running the Iron Man Institute one day and who's giving a talk at the Atlas dinner. I invented that. That's my creation, the Atlas dinners. So I thought that was kind of cool. And it was nice to see something that I created, something that I initiated, a pure, out of nowhere, in somebody else's storyline. I thought the presentation of the narcissist, which I think is the main thrust of the novella, trying to understand this narcissist, was really good. And I mean, I actually like the writing. Now I have to say this because somebody once told me I shouldn't comment on literature. I'm not an expert. I like the writing. So I'm wary just, and this is not meant to undermine what I just said, but it just meant to say, I'm not an expert on this. This is not, I encourage you to read the novella. I think it's interesting. But don't take my word for the writing. Because I once commented on a book. I didn't give it rave reviews. I commented positively on it, not in the context of the writing, but just in the context of certain parts of the story. And Leonard Peacock, who had read just a few pages of this author, told me, I didn't know anything about literature, and I should never comment about it because he was an awful, awful writer. And even though I didn't comment on the writing anyway, he told me don't ever comment on literature. So here it is. I shouldn't. But the psychological insight I thought of a narcissist is really interesting. It was interesting, believable. Again, the only part that wasn't believable to me was the woman. So anyway, I'm curious what Marybeth's thinks of that. She says it's about $3 on Kindle. That's how I don't read it. I read it on my iPad. So download it on Kindle. Have a read for $3. You'll be entertained. It is, if nothing else, interesting to think about the technology, the chip in the brain kind of technology. And I'm not getting into details partially because I can't really retain them and partially because Marybeth says, readers have very polar reactions on romantics. And I want to understand that. Why does it surprise me? It's a touchy topic. Anytime you deal with psychology, it's a touchy topic. It's a bit of a downer in the sense of at least there are no good men there, right? So in that sense, it's a bit of a downer. So I can understand why people would have different responses to it. Because to some extent, to more or less of extent, they'd be finding it interesting to delve into the psychology of an narcissist. But I find it interesting because I know people like that. Again, to some extent or another. I've known people like it's super smart, super committed to objectivism, at least seemingly, but complete losers and complete narcissists. And I think that Marybeth's did a good job of describing that kind of personality that kind of personality in the novella. And I know objectivists. I've known, again, people who claim to be objectivists like that in the past. She says, my lips are sealed. I'm not sure whose lips sealed. Anyway, about what? All right, thanks, Marybeth. Thanks for writing it. And thanks for paying me to read it. It's a pretty cool job I have. I get paid to watch TV shows and to read novellas. I'll take that job. Did I give spoilers? Oh, lips are sealed about the spoilers. Yes, don't know spoilers. OK, thank you. Because of Justin, we're much closer to achieving our goal. Still very few $20 questions, one from Shazbot. That's it. Surprising. OK, let's see what Justin has to say. Thank you, Justin. Australia is about to have a referendum asking the nation whether we should constitutionally recognize indigenous first people and constitutionally enshrine an indigenous advisory body to parliament. I reason that it should be rejected as dividing people by race and politics is morally objectionable. Am I right in what is the moral argument? Look, I don't think the issue few is race. I definitely think this should be rejected. Indeed, if it isn't rejected, then tell with Australia. I mean, Australia is in deep, deep trouble if it isn't rejected for many reasons. But look, what is a constitution supposed to do? A constitution is supposed to set the framework, the structure, and a framework for the law in protecting individual rights. It's supposed to treat individuals as individuals. It's supposed to protect them as individuals. It's a framework for coming up with objective laws to treat people as individuals. And this proposal is an abomination. It's abomination, one, because it rejects individualism. As you said, whether it's race or tribe or what it is, it is a recognition of collectivism, institutionalization of collectivism into the Constitution by recognizing these tribes as somehow having some kind of priority within the legal structure of Australia. Not because they've achieved something or not because they know something or not. They have a particular insight into the protection of individual rights. No, but because they were there first. But the reality is it doesn't matter who was there first. The only thing that matters in the law is the protection of rights. Now, so even recognizing the indigenous first people, whatever the hell that means, recognizing them, is an abomination. You don't have to recognize that because they're not peoples. They are individuals within their Australian nation. And the Australian nation is a successful prosperous nation because of the achievements of immigrants who came there from the West. That's what made Australia Australia. The first people would have never gotten there, certainly not in a time that has passed since, without the values injected from the West. And those are good values, superior values, to the values of the first people. So it's a kind of a values egalitarianism, a political values egalitarianism, which is wrong. And then the idea of creating an advisory body to parliament is absurd again and ridiculous. Just because you happen to be of a tribe that has its origins hundreds of years ago in Australia doesn't give you any, any, any insight into what is appropriate law and what is not appropriate law. What is right and what is wrong? What is good and what is bad? What is effective politics or right politics and what is not? So absolutely, this is a travesty, an immoral law because it is, I don't know what's the word I'm looking for. This is the jet lag, right? It codifies collectivism into the Constitution. And it gives power to people not because of their deserving their power, because of the knowledge that they have, because of the value they contribute, but because of their tribal ancestry. I mean, the best thing that can happen to the first people is for them to completely assimilate into the rest of the Australian population and disappear as a tribe. That is true of the American Indians. The best thing that can happen is to become Americans. The best thing that can happen to the first people is to become Australians as individuals, not as members of a tribe. It'd be interesting if God, I wonder if anybody's going to flag what I just said for some retribution from social media. But yeah, I mean, the best thing that can happen to any tribe is to disappear, a quiet tribe, and for the individuals within that tribe to become and establish themselves as individuals, to identify as individuals, to live as individuals, and to participate politically as individuals. So Justin, yeah, I think it's horrible. I think it's a moral travesty. I think I gave you the arguments. Let me know if you have any follow-ups on that. Shazmat says, what did you think of Pierce's Chevy Chase's role in the community episode? I mean, it's hard for me to tell because obviously, you know, Pierce is a character that goes through all of these and he's playing off of things that happened in the past. But I thought what he brings to the role is he's obviously envious. He's angry. He's, you know, on the one hand, he's got the perspective of get over yourself, you know, whatever, Neil, fat Neil, get over your problems, which is not exactly the right, the optimal psychological impact. But he's playing to win, at least in that sense. He is a foil to the group who wants to help Neil win. You know, I don't know that he does it consciously, but clearly Neil can get the self-esteem that he requires by winning because they let him win. He has to win it himself. And Pierce is the only character who makes it possible for that to happen. So he's an important engine in the story to facilitate Neil actually winning for himself. But at the same time, he also comes across as a deeply horrible human being. I don't know if I got it there, if Shah's bought it or not. Or am I missing something? Andrew, again, and he's also great comic relief. And he says, regarding those who chronically hate others, are the collectivists themselves, whose hatred is caused by the collectivism, or do they merely exploit collectivism as a means to the end of expressing the hatred? I think it depends. I don't think they're all the same thing. I think some people might even start out on a just cause. And in this episode of Star Trek, the argument could be made that the one character starts out as a rebel for a just cause, for eliminating racism, or eliminating discrimination. But that leads him down a collectivistic rabbit hole that makes him ultimately become a collectivist and become a hater. And hate becomes the dominant. I think there are people on the left who probably started out on the issue of racism with good intentions, in the sense that they wanted to eliminate racism. They wanted to get racism. They wanted to destroy racism in this country and get rid of it. And then they get swept out in their own form of collectivism and then in hatred and have morphed into haters for the sake of hatred. So again, you'll find. And then on the flip side, there are a lot of people who just hate, and they're very young. They're just haters. And it's just a question of what cause they'll embrace to manifest that hatred. So both exist. Just as a follow-up, the main argument used by proponents is, jiu-jitsu colonialism, indigenous Australians are uniquely suffering and are best placed to advise on solutions. Is there something to that? No. I mean, there's nothing to that. Now, I agree that grave injustices were committed against indigenous people in the past. But there's only one solution to that. And that solution is to stop treating them as indigenous people. The solution is to treat them as individuals and to integrate them fully as individuals into society. Now, I don't know the mechanisms in Australia, but in the United States, for example, that never happened with Indian tribes. What was done with Indian tribes is they were treated as tribes. And for example, they're still, the land is not owned by individuals. It's owned by the tribe, the tribe of the nation, as it's called. So individual Indians, American Indians, own nothing. The tribe owns it on these reservations. And they're treated, I did a whole show on this years ago, they're treated horribly. I mean, really, really horribly. It's one of the great injustices of modern times in America. People talk about systemic racism. Just look at how American Indians are being treated today. And the core, the essence of the reason they're treated that way is that because they're treated as a tribe and not as individuals. You know, they can't even make decisions as a tribe. There is a department in the American government that makes decisions for them. They're treated as children. It's, God, it is so disgusting. So the solution is to recognize publicly the great injustices of committing. I'm sure there were massacres. Land was stolen. You know, bad things were done by the settlers, and I don't call them colonialists, by the settlers in Australia, to the indigenous people. And that needs to be recognized and admitted to. But that's history. It's finished. It's over. And the question is, how do we move forward? And the only way to move forward is for them to take personal responsibility over their own lives and for the Australian government to allow them the personal freedom to do so without treating them as indigenous First Nation or as a nation at all. Individuals protected under the Australian constitution. Hopefully it's a decent constitution. Oh, all right. I'm fading here with, yeah, tired. All right, let's see. James says, a great many people think they are thinking when they're merely rearranging their prejudices. Yeah, I think there's a lot of truth to that. James says, is the dystopian future much closer than people realize? No, I actually don't think so. I think it's not as close. Not as close. Remember, Justin, it always boils down to the individual. What matters is the individual. There is no such thing as tribal belonging. There is no such thing as an existence of a tribe or a right, a tribal right. Rights are individual rights. There are no tribal rights. There are no group rights. All there is is the individual. All right, James says, took your piece to be looking to build back its empire. Do you think it will succeed? No, I don't think it will succeed. And it's hesitant in terms of building back its empire because it's hemmed in, right? It would like to have taken control of the parts of Syria. But the Russians in Syria and the Russians won't let them and the Americans in Syria and the Americans won't exactly let them. They'd like to be able to take over the Kurds and penalize the Kurds in Iraq and in Syria. But the Iraqis are not exactly going to let them. And again, the Americans in Iraq and the Americans in Syria and the Russians are there. And where are they going to go? I mean, they'd like to join the European Union, but the European Union doesn't really want them. I think they have a fantasy that they can build back their empire. But there's no realistic prospect of that happening. And I think they know it. James, will you ever do a public speaking event in the US? Are there any places you have considered giving the workshop? Oh, the public speaking workshop. I tried to do it in Miami a few years ago. And I had almost nobody show up sign up. So let's do this. If you're interested in attending live a public speaking workshop in the United States, probably in Miami, because that's easiest for me, or yeah, probably in Miami. Would you be willing to come to Miami for such a thing? Would you be willing to pay, let's say, $750 for the day, for one day, for a one day event? So I'm looking for 10 people who'd be willing to do that. So email me at youron at youronbookshow.com if you're interested in attending a public speaking workshop in Miami that would cost you $750. A lot of personal time with me, 10 people or less. So very focused. It'll be six to eight hours during the day, depending on how many people are there. Let me know. And I'll decide if there are enough people. I'll organize it. Michael, what are you starting to love the older you get? What am I starting to love the older I get? Wisdom. Wisdom is what I love. They're just accumulated knowledge, and accumulated knowledge of how to approach knowledge. That's pretty cool. What are your thoughts on Rodin's, the thinker sculpture? I think there's a, I mean, I think it's impressive. I think it's great art. There's no question about that. But there's something depressing about it. I mean, thinking is something you do squatted. He looks a little depressed. It's hard. It's effort in a way that I don't think. It's not joyful. It's joy less. There's a sudden, his expression on his face is not one of positive deep thought and the wonders of deep thought. It's too negative. It's too much a projection of a negative view of a thinker rather than a positive view of a thinker. But it is impressive. And I wish there was more art like that in sculpture, art like that, meaning art that meant something, art that projected something, art that of that ability in terms of just quality of sculpting. So it's very well made. Daniel says, I've been reading about Lee Kuan Ye-yu, first prime minister of Singapore. He was a collectivist. What in your opinion of him, how he ran the country? I mean, yes, he was a collectivist. But on the other hand, he opened up Singapore's borders to a lot of immigrants from a lot of different places. So it wasn't a collectivism based on a tribe. As authoritarians go, as collectivists go, he's about as good as he gets. He implemented policies that allowed individuals to flourish within a system of known limitations. But they were known. So it wasn't like many totalitarian regimes where you never know if you're breaking the law. The laws were clear and unequivocal. They were oppressive. But they set clear boundaries. And within those boundaries, people were basically left alone. And that allowed people to still innovate and grow and create and build. And the result is the success that has been Singapore. So of the authoritarians in history, he's definitely one of the better ones. He found a successful formula and stuck with it. It's not ideal formula, but it's more successful. And the Chinese Deng Xiaoping tried to mimic that economic liberty while restraining other things. But it was never sustainable in China. And of course, in China, China has moved away significantly from that model. Paul Azuz says, Megan Ribbons. Megan Ribbons is her name. Sorry to have not given the name outright. Megan Ribbons Romantics. You can find it on Kindle. It's about $3. You can download it, read it. It's enjoyable. There's a group of objectors who actually do a flash dance in the novella. And I was shocked that there's no character in the novella called Jaron Brooke joining in with the flash dance. But there is a flash dance in it. Objective is doing flash dance. I don't know. Paul Azuz says, I'll be back soon. Where are you going? Oh, but he's back already. All right. Daniel, I have. Oh, I already got that question. I've been reading. What is your opinion? Randy County was a collectivist. He had a free marketer. He was a free marketer to a point, right? I mean, housing is not privately owned in Singapore. So there are elements that are not free market. Daniel says, do green members, super chats, count to super chats? No. No, you know, I know money transfers when a green, when a question asks, when a member asks a question as a member, if that is understandable. You have to do a literally a super chat in order to contribute money. All right, everybody, thanks for joining me today. Sorry I'm a bit out of it. I am really jet lagged and going to bed right now. I will see you all tomorrow, probably at 1 o'clock, East Coast time. And OK, there is a Bula York in the novella who sings the flash mob, Bula York, Iran, Brooke. All the letters, no, no, it's not. Well, maybe. I don't know. No, there's only one all over there. Yeah, it's not used to the same letters. Maybe it's a coincidence. Maybe it's not. But you know, you lost me. You lost me with the singing. Because there's no way that would ever happen. And you wouldn't want to be there if it did ever happen. Thanks, guys. I will see you all tomorrow. Have a great rest of your night. Bye, everybody.