 So radical, fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rocks. This is The Iran Brookshow. All right, everybody, welcome to Iran Brookshow. On this December 23rd, two days to Christmas, hope everybody is having a fantastic weekend and looking forward to a wonderful Christmas. And yeah, I figured this is the opportunity to talk about Christmas, given that we're not going to have a show tomorrow or Monday. Monday is Christmas, after all. And after Christmas, we'll be focusing on year-end kind of stuff and a lot of newsy kind of stuff. So we're going to devote today's show to Christmas. Feel free to ask questions about anything, really. It doesn't have to be about this particular topic. Benevolent questions get preference. Benevolent, they get measured by the amount of dollars. No, I'm kidding. But benevolent questions get preference. And let me see, what else do we need to do before we jump into the show? We might as well just jump into the show. So Christmas, what an amazing, really amazing holiday. It took me a while, I think, when I emigrated to the United States to kind of get a handle on Christmas. It's not an easy, I think, holiday to really grasp when you're a foreigner. Because it's got this obvious Christian connotation, which is, well, for me, it was of off-putting, right? So it's got this whole notion of this is a Christian holiday. This is a celebration of Jesus. Jesus, I'm not a big fan of Jesus. So it took me a while to get that in America, and I think now in most the modern world, Christmas has been, in a sense, in many regards, divorced from Christianity. And Christmas is a holiday that celebrates just goodwill between people and chieftainess, and happiness, and benevolence, right? This general sense, benevolence being just general sense of goodwill towards other people, the general idea in this context, that other people are valued to you, or can be valued to you, and many of them are valued to you. It's a very materialistic holiday, which is kind of cool, and secular, and very non-Christian. It's, there's almost, I mean, here and there, you see one of these scenes with Jesus, and I don't know. And, but it's not, that's not the focus. The focus of the holiday is Christmas trees with lots of lights, lots of lights, and colorful stuff, and different people have different traditions around what should be on a Christmas tree. But there's Christmas trees in different public spaces, the Christmas trees in different, you know, in the mall, there's, of course, Christmas trees in people's homes, and they often put them next to the windows so you get the lights out, sharing that light and celebration with people around. And it's not just Christmas trees, there's decoration. And the decoration all have to do with lights, with fun stuff, I guess. For some of you, Christmas is cold. It's been a long, long time since I had a cold Christmas. For me, Christmas is warm. It's associated with sunshine. It's, God, I'm sure I've had white Christmases, probably when I lived in Boston, but that's, that's more than 40 years ago. I can't remember, maybe we went on vacation to like ski resorts on Christmas, so maybe I've had a white Christmas. But mostly, it's warm, it's lights, presents, decoration, lots of food, good food. And, you know, often getting together with friends, hanging out, for many of you, I'm sure, it's getting together with family. Hopefully you like your family. That is kind of a prerequisite for having a good Christmas is to get together with people you actually like. I encourage you to do that, by the way. If you're getting together with people you don't really like, then don't do it. That sounds like a sacrifice. It's, in that sense, the whole idea of a tree is very much a, not a very Christian thing. Again, the tree is more of a pagan thing. It was a celebration of the evergreen of the survival of life, of the continuation of life in spite of the horrors of, I don't know, Northern European winters. And you celebrate the fact that they are still green. They're still life in spite of the horrors outside. But Christmas in terms of the season that it's celebrated in, in terms of many of the customs that go back hundreds of years, is very much one of these holidays that the Christians stole from the pagans, and originally from pagans in Rome, but then they picked up different habits from different pagans in different parts of Europe. And Christmas is really, I mean, Jesus wasn't necessarily born now. I think, well, anyway, there's no proof he was born during this month. It's much more about, you know, this is the beginning of the winter. And there are celebrations throughout the pagan world around the beginning of winter. They are, much of how we celebrate Christmas, today, is a creation of 19th century capitalism in the United States. The Santa Claus, Mickey and Bee deal out of Santa Claus, the gift-giving, but including the lights and all of that, it was very much our marketing tool to sell stuff and to get people's attention and to bring them into the store. And to this day, right, there's a Santa in the mall and you take your kids to get a picture with Santa and there are lots of lights. And of course, there's sales and the sales continue from Thanksgiving all the way to Christmas. And we all do, or most of us do, shopping during this period, not just to buy gifts, but also for ourselves. So it really is a season of celebration, of benevolence, of lights, of commercial enterprise, of buying stuff, of materialism in that sense of just a good time. Parties and lots of food and on top of that, if you will, the spiritual element of Christmas is not, a spiritual element of Christmas is not the element of Christmas that's Christian. It's not about sacrifice and humility and penance and all of that. Really, the spiritual element of Christmas, the spiritual dimension of Christmas has really become this appreciation of a friendship, appreciation of family that you love. It's an appreciation of other people. It's a, the spiritual side of it is a spiritual side of camaraderie, friendship, love, and being able to be together with people that you love like during the season. And that of course is all, mostly, spiritual pleasure, right? And it's again, it's very secular. It's in that sense, it's very rational. It's focused on your values. It's very egoistic in the sense that people go out there and they buy stuff for themselves. They buy stuff they like, or they buy stuff for people they like, people they love, people they care about. And it's, so here's a holiday that's celebratory, focused on joy, and focused on other people and the value other people represent to you, the value other people represent in your life, and focused on both spiritual and material wellbeing. Jonathan, thank you for the support. Jonathan, who did a fantastic show with me, was it two nights ago? Two days ago? Yeah, just about pets. So if you're interested at all in the value of pets and in kind of an objective perspective on the value of pets, Jonathan recounted many stories from his book, which is available now. Make a great Christmas present. Maybe already a New Year's present. I'm not sure if it'll ride by Christmas, but you can get it. Although you can get it on a Kindle, you can buy yourself a present or download the audio. Although I recommend the hard copy because it's got lots of fantastic, lots of fantastic photos of Ein Rand with her cats. I've learned to pick up with his dogs, particularly Kiki, the dog that passed away, I think it's not a couple of years ago, and some essays by Leonard Peacoff and some quotations from Ein Rand. So a fantastic book, fantastic gift, and you should all go back and listen to the episode I did with Jonathan where we discussed this. And what you get is also Jonathan's excitement and passion for his own dog that he has now and dogs that he had in his past all the way back to his childhood. So that was a fun, benevolent show. All right, so let's see. John says, there was no sun god, there was no sun god, 1225 holidays until the Phoenician calendar of 354. This was after the Christians started celebrating 1225 as Jesus' birth. I have no comment, but 1225 by all historical accounts is not when Jesus was born. But there are lots of other pagans, and it's not that the particular date is what matters, it's a particular season. It's just like Easter happens to be in the same season that you have, Christmas happens to be in the exact same season, the Jews have Chanukah, and Easter happens to be in the same season, the Jews and the pagans celebrate the beginning of the spring, and it's not a coincidence. These holidays, the mankind, these are periods of time. The beginning of winter, the beginning of the spring, these are holidays that mankind is always celebrated in the Christians, piggybacked off of it, and that's not a slam on Christianity. They probably had no clue when Jesus was born that they pick a date, they pick the date when other people are in about the same area where other people are celebrating as well. And where they were used to celebrating, after all, the first Christians were Jews. And as a consequence, it was easy to pick a date that also coincided with holidays that they had been, that were celebrated in Judaism. So I don't know what particular pagans they took this from. I'm sure the historians, I'm sure the historians can debate this and figure this out, but I have no idea. But there's no question that things like Santa Claus are not Christian. The things like a Christmas tree is not Christian. Things like putting lights up and decorations were not Christian. Indeed, Christian tradition, in terms of celebrating Christians is much more solemn and much more reflective and much more, you know, much more focused than Jesus. And Christians, for the most part, the more Christian Christians have objected to the kind of commercialization and what do you call it, a conversion of Christianity into something that is celebratory, celebratory not just of Jesus, but of life and something that is far more, again, commercial and secular. The Christians are offended by that and they still are to this day. I mean, regularly what you get is all Christmas, it needs to be less commercial. We need to focus more on, we need to go to church, we need to do this. It doesn't work because Americans still love the holiday for what it is. Too much for that to actually happen. All right, Jonathan, thank you. As I said, Willa, thank you. Willa's done two. Jonathan did two, Willa did two. Stickers and Apollo, sticker, thank you, John, for the super chat. Jason, that's not on topic. We'll get to that later. That's way off, way, way off topic. So, yeah, and I think you see some of the best of Americans since of life to your Christmas. I think people are just more joyful. Christmas movies tend to be very joyous movies. They tend to emphasize again the positive and the benevolence and again, the kind of friendliness towards other people, which I think is generally prevalent in American society, anywhere American society is a pretty benevolent society. And I think it comes from being free, from being a free society and kind of a tradition, a freedom that kind of got embedded into the sense of life. But then in Christmas, everybody makes an added effort for the sake of Christmas. Andrew says, benevolence can be tough for objectivists who feel against the world and the realm of ideas, yet in reason there are many opportunities for social benevolence, how can objectivists avoid feeling opposed to others? Well, I mean, I don't feel opposed to others. It's like, I know that objectivists do, but I don't, because I don't, I mean, too much of people's lives are focused on other people's politics and how they, you know, and we all know the consequence of those politics are terrible, but I prefer to focus on something which I think is more fundamental to my relationship with people and to the fact that there's very little I can do about their politics. And also, I also know where the politics come from. That is, the politics are not the beginning and they're not the beginning of somebody's intellectual path. They're not the decision they make, oh, I wanna be a looter. You know, they come from ideas and I realize that a change ideas is gonna take a long time. In the meantime, people's politics are gonna be pretty crummy. And yes, they vote for horrible candidates that then I have to live with and that pisses me off. So I could walk around being pissed off at humanity all day long. But I'd rather focus on the fact that most of the people out there are productive. Most of people out there are doing productive things and that productive activity actually benefits me directly and indirectly. Directly the people who I buy stuff from, who I engage with in a commercial value for value transactions but who benefit my life directly. And isn't it interesting in America and I don't think this exists elsewhere quite to the same extent that even when you buy something and buying is, you're giving up something, you're getting something but you know that the party is better off, right? They made a profit, you made a profit. You still say thank you. Which is an expression of the fact that I'm better off and I appreciate that. And yeah, I know you're better off too but thank you. Thank you for making me better off. I appreciate that. And they of course say thank you back to you because it is a win-win trading relationship and the more win-win, and you should view the human beings around you in the context of there is an ongoing trade win-win relationship that is ongoing. Now it's subverted in politics and we always have to keep that in mind but at the end of the day, at the end of the day, most people out there are traders still. And as such, I benefit from them. And I'm particularly thankful to the people who I trade with during this time of year. I don't know, I leave bigger tips. I emphasize the thank yous a little bit more and so on. During Christmas. But I think if you've been ever lent, you do that all year round. So I think that's where a lot of people make an error is that their head is stuck in politics but it's broader than that. So let me try broaden that a little bit. It's not just that it's political. People's head is stuck in all the negatives that are happening, right? Right now, I mean there's a sense in which today it's difficult for me to talk about Christmas and benevolence and being happy and charitable and appreciating other human beings and all of that while at the same time, there are soldiers fighting in Gaza right now and getting killed and dying. And while the dictators and the horrible people in the world are gaining the upper hand in various sections of the world and while our world is filled of people who are super weak in defending the values of Christmas, right? The values that they should. Jason reminds us it's a day of mourning in the Czech Republic right now because God, I mean just the insanity of what happened there the other day and we know that's happened in the US on occasion. The shoe existence of people like that sick, crazy nihilist who shot up those people in the Czech Republic. It's easier to focus on all those things. And you've got to focus on them periodically and you've got to focus on them sometimes and you've got to acknowledge them, figure them out and at the same time at the same time deal with them, right? You've got to figure it out, you've got to deal with them, you've got to handle them both in your own mind and to the extent that you can act in the world out there to change them, you've got to go out there and make changes and you've got to deal with them. And a lot of what we do in the Iran book show and a lot of what we do as human beings during the year is deal with those things, deal with the horrors. So, you know what I mean? So, it's easy to continue and to spend one more day on that. And, but it's also good to spend some time generally in life all year, but then maybe focus a little bit more during this part of the year and during this season on a benevolent interpretation or a benevolent part or the good part of what's going on in the world. It is still true that particularly if you live in America and particularly if you live in parts of Western Europe even in the Czech Republic because horrible is what happened the other day, there is. It is still true that we live in, if not, you know, materially the best time ever in all of human history to be alive and in many other ways, one of the best if not the best time to be alive. It's still an amazing time. It's still true that with eight billion people on the planet Earth, the amount of good things that happen every day for exceeds the number of horrors that are happening. The fact is that again, most people out there are, what do you call it, are productive, producing, creating, building, making stuff, making stuff. Right. So yeah, it is a good time of year to stop, to get away from the news, to get away from politics, to get away from that malevolence that might have crept into your mind, to get away from the BS that's happening and to get away from your problems and your concerns and your angsts and focus a little bit on the good in your life. Focus a little bit on how wonderful it is to be alive and how wonderful it is that the world is, the good parts of it are the way they are and how amazing it is. And yes, we'd like to be freer, but we're freer than people of, almost freer, you know, it's one of the freest period in all of human history, particularly if you're a woman, let's say, particularly if you're a member of certain minorities, it's the freest you've ever been and you have more opportunities than you ever have. Yes, the constraints, the restrictions when we're moving the wrong direction, the bad people out there, they're gaining in up at hand. You've got the rest of the year to think about that. Don't think about it now. Spend some time and maybe get into the habit, the mental habit of not focusing in on how bad things are constantly and get into that mental habit, into a habit of focusing on what's good in the life around you and what's positive. And focus on the people who do good things, right? Good things to you, the people who create and build and make and create the world as we know it and have made your life better. Focus on those, focus on your friends, focus on your loved ones and focus on the productive out there in the world, right? All right, John wants to pick a fight. He's not gonna let this go. Name a single recent historian who thinks Christians settled on 1225 as Jesus birthed because of Saturnalia or Sol Invictus and he names three historians. I have none. Why is a recent historian better than a less recent historian? I mean, one of the phenomenas of recent history is that all the Christian apologists out there trying to tell us that the dark ages were good times, they weren't dark at all. So I'm a little suspicious of modern historians particularly ones who specialize in Christianity. I just read Dominion does not engender me with a lot of confidence in people's ability to evaluate the history of Christianity well. But no, I don't know. I'd have to go and do some research but everything I know about Christianity is it's got some real innovation and much of else it's second-handed. It's a religion that picked up a lot of different things from the culture around it, which is not surprising. I'm not condemning it for that. And I'm very skeptical that any historian can actually figure out the day that Jesus was born. Anyway, it doesn't matter. Dominion was not written by a Christian. But they have a hard time with Christianity. They want and struggle to defend it. Anyway, I'll have to do my history research to figure out when Christmas was. But Christianity throughout its history has taken from other cultures. I'll have to find the historical book that talked about this that I read. But yeah, I mean, and it makes complete sense that it would. All right, all right, that we're gonna do another time later. Willa says, maybe Christmas there's a decidedly low amount of impairment in this chat. Santa would be so disappointed. I agree. I agree with Willa and I'm getting questions about nihilists and shooters and stuff like this. Come on people, get into the Christmas spirit. You all, you know, just so frigging negative, get over it. I mean, where else are you gonna find a podcast host who criticizes his audience for being too negative? We gotta elevate the, you know, life is good. Life can be good. And if you're not feeling that, if you're not integrating that, then you gotta think about it. And you gotta figure out where all the good stuff that's going on out there. And how to focus on that. And that should be a good New Year's resolution. Focus on the good in life. Focus on the good in the world. Focus on the good in my life. And to the extent I don't have enough, well, I should listen to Yuan's rules for life to get more, right? Take control of your environment. Take control of your life and make it better. There is so much that you can do that does not depend on the rest of the world that you can do. You get to choose your friends. Ultimately, ultimately, you get to choose, you know, the kind of work you do. And if you're not happy, switch. You get to choose who to be with. You get to choose the space in which you live. You get to choose how to make that space beautiful. How to make that space pretty. I was going to do the show today on beauty and making your surroundings beautiful. I've done that before, but then I figured, no, now's the time to talk about Christmas, but it's a good time to... Yeah, I mean, hopefully you have a Christmas tree. Hopefully you put on some lights. Hopefully you've decorated a little bit. Not because that's what the neighbors do and that's what's expected, but because it'll cheer you up. And it's good to be surrounded by pretty things, right? One theme going on in the chat is, as James says, you really do have to watch Godzilla minus one. It's a great movie to watch and to start the new year. It's in my top three films of the year. I wonder what the other two films... What are the other two films that you have in your top films of the year, James? I'm curious. Jason says, here's something cool. I'm watching you today on a new ex-real VR glasses that I got yesterday. Pretty cool stuff. The future is here. It's not. That's the cool thing about it. That's just the beginning. I mean, how cool is the whole VR world gonna be as it gets integrated with AI and with the capacity of AI to provide us with information and to visualize that information? How cool is VR gonna be once Apple comes out with their glasses in March and accelerates the competition around it and just drives everybody to the next level? Yeah, I mean, the future is happening and good parts of the future are indeed happening in spite of all the challenges, right? In spite of all the challenges. John says, many struggle with sadness during the holidays because of lost loved ones rather than reflecting on the good fortune of having had those relationships. Absolutely, and that's a really important point. I mean, there is sadness out there. There are tragedies. There is bad. There is evil out there. But one of the things that you should really try to do, and again, this Christmas is a reminder of that. It's not the only time in the year to do it. But it's a reminder of take some time to think about the positives in your life. Take some time to reflect on some of the amazing times you had with the loved one you may have lost. Remember the Tennyson, you see I've learned, the Tennyson saying from poem, it's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. Focus on the loved, focus on the fact that you had that in your life and maybe still have that in your life, in other realms and other parts of it. Focus on all the beauty and good that really does surround us all. And it's just a good time. Christmas is a great time to really, really contemplate all the good things that you have in your life. And that's why it's a season for reflection, not for a reflection of all the sad things that have happened to me, but I consider anytime from Thanksgiving until New Year's, really a time to reflect on the year, learn from it, project into next year, do planning, really think about what you wanna do next year and really focus on the positive, on action, on plans, on how to do even better. And I love the season for that. I love it for the benevolence and the lights and the colors and the celebration and the benevolence that's all around. But I also like it for the, it's just a quieter period of time or at least maybe each one of us puts itself in a quieter state of mind. And it's a planning state of mind. It's a state of mind to think about the past and the future, to summarize the year and to think forward to the coming year. It really is a period to think. So Mayor Benz, who reminds me that it is a Tennyson poem, that's homage to a friend who died in memoriam HHH, HHH of the initials of the friend who died. So yeah, I've only memorized the one line. I wish I had Tennyson memorized. Tennyson is, I don't know, one of the great poets, if not the greatest, but it's beautiful. Chandler says, I often focus on bad things. Don't. And I know don't doesn't help you, but you need to focus on not focusing on bad things. And again, he was where psychologists can really help. And he says Augustine would disapprove of the show. Who the FK is what Augustine thinks? We reject Augustine with passion, with passion on this show. This is the anti-Augustine show, the anti-Christian show. Why do I deserve questions like this? This is that doodle bunny. That doodle bunny rights. I mean, this is a stats, I have to say, sad state of affairs. What is a reasonable price to pay for a very high-end prostitute for New Year's? A woman so gorgeous, I could never pick up at the bar. Something on my bucket list I want to experience. Well, I mean, there's so many wrong things with this question. One is, I have to say I have no desire, zero. It's experience sex with a prostitute. It seems soulless. And the fact that she's beautiful, I mean, it's nice. I like to see beautiful women. But sex is so much more than a physical act or the appreciation of somebody else's body. So it just lands flat. I mean, in a sense, what a waste of beauty. It's not a lasting thrill and excitement and experience, in my view. And then from an economic point of view, it's an incredibly ridiculous question. What's a reasonable price? Reasonable based on what? First of all, you're assuming I know something about this, which I don't. But reasonable based on what? Reasonable based on your values of mine. Reasonable based on Las Vegas or Bogota, Colombia. Economically, it just doesn't make any sense. It depends on your value hierarchy and it depends on where and the market conditions at any given point in time. It depends on the competition. Supplying demand, right? It's all about supply and demand. I don't know. And it depends on what you consider gorgeous, right? We have different tastes in what we consider gorgeous. In some places, gorgeous is much, much cheaper than in other places. I guess I'm asking for it, right? Badly said, most people are good, just scared. I think unfortunately there's a lot of, I mean, the scared part, there's a lot of truth to that. Gail says, dad was a great thinker and teacher. He tried to provoke thought in us with pranks. He once cut the wings off the angel tree decorations. That's good. I mean, I'm curious if that indeed provoked you to think and whether that provoked you to engage in questions. And did those questions lead, I mean, what kind of conversations did that lead to? Did it lead to something more intellectual? I'm curious. All right, more of that. Yeah, this I like. Stringer Bell 314 says, hey, Iran. Well, he says, hello, Iran. I should read it properly. Hello, Iran. I took your advice about surrounding yourself with beauty. I acquired from me as the astronomer and caught in Young's draftsman for my study area. Do you have any recommendations for dining room or bedroom? Yeah, I mean, God, there's so much. And I don't know, it depends on really what you like. God, I mean, bedroom, is it a bedroom you share or a bedroom where you're alone? Because if you share it, that it should be something something that your partner appreciates as well and maybe something a little bit erotic, something a little bit more, maybe a nude, maybe something, I don't know if you guys know Steve Hanks who did these beautiful watercolors. I haven't seen his stuff in years and years, but you can probably buy his posters online. They've been available for a long time. And Steve Hanks has these gorgeous posters of very sensual women and in suggestive, suggestive, but what would you say tasteful, very tasteful opposers. So Jennifer says she has the both of Venus in the bedroom. That's a good one. Yeah, I mean, I have a variety of different things, but I definitely have Steve Hanks as well and have had Steve Hanks for years and years and years in the bedroom. In terms of dining room, I don't know. I mean, it depends on lighting. It depends on so many things. I mean, it's very hard, but it just buys stuff you like and put it up in different places. So it's great that you got Vermeer, but just the focus should be on stuff I like. And stuff I find beautiful, stuff I enjoy looking at rather than a particular room to place it in. Tessa said, thank you for all the facts, Professor. I appreciate it. I'm not sure which facts we're talking about, but I appreciate it. Ory says, I'll be watching Yaron's favorite Christmas movie. It's a wonderful life tomorrow. Really? God. New Year's my favorite holiday. A celebration of nothing in particular, but the fact of being alive. Yeah, I mean, Christmas is like the runway towards New Year's. Like, it's like all one big holiday. I mean, what's the difference? Does anybody get any serious work done between Christmas and New Year? I don't think so. So it's all one big holiday, celebrating life, celebrating benevolence, a great world, celebrating the wealth that we have, the technology that we have and the people we surround ourselves with. But I hate, I mean, I hate, it's a very, very well-made movie. It's a wonderful life, it's a really, really good movie. I just think it's a terrible movie intellectually. I think it's a movie that celebrates altruism. It's a movie that is, you know, diminishes banking and finance. But mainly it's a movie that celebrates altruism. It's a movie about a man who does not pursue his dreams, does not do what he thinks he wants to do. He basically does what everybody else wants him to do. He's basically a man who has devoted his life, in a sense, to everybody else except himself. And then discovers that by doing so, everybody else is wonderfully better off and he gets great pleasure and joy for that and says, okay, so my life has been worth living. Basically, because I've done all these wonderful things for other people. Which is kind of a way to make him happy in spite of all the altruism. But, I mean, I wish he'd just gone to Paris. Which is what he wanted to do. So, I mean, it's a wonderful life, it's a great movie to watch on Christmas and then say, I'm not gonna be that. I'm not gonna do what my family wants me to do. I'm not gonna act out of duty. I'm not gonna marry the woman I love just because she wants to. I'm not gonna not go to Paris because duty calls. I'm not gonna dedicate my life to the community, to my family, to everything around me. I am gonna do what I think is good for me. And yeah, so it's not a movie I like. As you know, I've been interviewed about it. I've been in the paper about it, and so on. You know, the other Christmas story is, of course, a Christmas cowl. And a Christmas cowl is, you know, we should have done a poll regarding what is your favorite Christmas movie, but let's just do it as a question to people in the chat. What is your favorite Christmas movie? I'll tell you mine. I think I did an episode at Christmas a few years ago on my favorite Christmas movie, but I'm curious what your favorite Christmas movie is. But another one is, of course, what do you call it? A Christmas cowl. And again, it's so focused on altruism on, yeah, Scott, of course, it's a wonderful life, the worst Christmas movie possible. I think that's the core of Scott and I's disagreement is it boils down to it's a wonderful life. Everything else comes from that. It's a wonderful life. It's a terrible movie. I know a man called Capra Akami. Let's see. It's a wonderful life, Miracle 34th Street. Miracle 34th Street is a very benevolent, nice movie. Die Hard, yeah, Die Hard is fun. It's not really a Christmas movie, is it now? I mean, it doesn't embody the spirit of Christmas. The good guys do win in the end, but it's pretty brutal and it's not frosty. White Christmas, 1954, White Christmas, that's a good movie. Home Alone. Home Alone, again, embody, you know, embraces violence around Christmas. I don't get this Die Hard, Home Alone, being Christmas movie. Yes, they're setting Christmas, but they're not embedding the spirit of Christmas. They're not embedding that benevolence, that joy. I mean, there's some joy in Home Alone because he's beating up on the bad guys and it's funny. Die Hard, there's no real joy at the end maybe when he's won. Scrooge with Bill Murray is a lot of fun and funny. I agree with that, but it's, I mean, again, the premise of Scrooge and Christmas Cavill is so at the end of the day altruistic. Gremlins, oh God, I can't remember Gremlins. Holiday Inn, I like much more than what? What did, than White Christmas? Yeah, it's also a good movie. I mean, all those fifties movies were good. Die Hard again, action movie, yeah. I don't buy it that it's a true Christmas movie. Die Hard makes him happy, Finn Hopper says. Alistair Sim, Christmas Cavill. Yeah, but it's, again, it's so about, yeah, I mean, why? I mean, the whole point of, oh, I need a review, we'll review Black Addis Christmas Cavill, which is a great Christmas movie, right? Black Addis Christmas is a great Christmas movie. So that's one of the greats. Monty Python's Life of Brian is the best Christmas movie. I didn't realize it was a Christmas movie, but Life of Brian is certainly a great movie. So that's really good. George C. Scott's Christmas Cavill, all right. I can't think of any definitive Christmas movie that I like, Christopher says. Nobody's mentioned my favorite. Polar Express, I never saw Polar Express. White Christmas, okay. Bad Santa. A Christmas story. Muppets Family Christmas, that's fun. Anything by the Muppets is fun. The Grinch, the Grinch is a second-hand, yeah, but the Grinch is fun. I like the Grinch. The Grinch was a Me John Doe. If I remember right, another Frank Capra movie. Or is that, Mr. Smith goes to, Me John Doe is a Frank Capra movie. Drapers, the Gates of Dawn. Oh, it's a great bedroom painting. Okay. Let's see, any other Christmas movie? Nobody mentioned mine. I'm really disappointed. I thought that my show on this movie left its mark. I guess it didn't. Ghostbusters 2, all right. Ghostbusters 1 and 2 were pretty good. Ghostbusters 1 was much better than 2 though. Elf, Elf is a Christmas movie. Kind of fun, kind of silly. Eyes wide shut. God. Not a Christmas movie, sorry. No, horrible movie and not a Christmas movie. Trading Places is a classic of Christmas. It's a funny movie. It's silly and it's the meaning to finance, but, and it's the meaning to merit. It's a movie that basically says anybody can make money. There's no talent. There we go. Edson finally got it. The best Christmas movie ever in history is Shop Around the Corner. And if you haven't seen Shop Around the Corner, then you should watch Shop Around the Corner. God, Jimmy Stewart and I can't remember the name of the actress. God, I should remember the name of the actress. Anyway, Shop Around the Corner, it is benevolent, joyful, you know, happy. You've got mail is just a modern take on Shop Around the Corner. There are many modern takes on Shop Around the Corner. It's a story that's repeated in quite a few movies, but Shop Around the Corner is the original. It's made by, I think, one of, if not the greatest, comedy director ever. Don't tell me I'm gonna forget his name now. It's ridiculous. All right, we're gonna get his name. Shop Around the Corner, of course, was directed by Ernst Lubitsch, Ernst Lubitsch. And if you haven't seen Ernst Lubitsch movies, shame on you. You gotta go find Ernst Lubitsch movies. You should just spend the next few days watching Ernst Lubitsch movies. I mean, they are the funniest, smartest, many of them incredibly, but nevelent. You should definitely see, you know, Ninochka's not a Christmas movie, but Ninochka's one of the great movies of all time, I think. It's just, it's a movie that makes fun of communism. There's a good theme for you guys. But yes, Shop Around the Corner, a wonderful movie. And as I said, pretty much anything by Ernst Lubitsch is worth watching. We can go down with a list of his movies. Why is there no list of his movies? That's ridiculous. Oh, because it's a separate thing. Let's see, all of these are German. We're looking for the ones where he came to, he came to Hollywood, the movies that he made in English. Oh, those are also, he made silent movies. I forgot about that. This is weird. The movie's names, there's so many of these. Oh, The Smiling Lieutenant is with Maurice Chavallier and Claudette Colbert is wonderful, Miriam Hopkins. Designed for living with Gary Cooper and Frederick Marsh and Miriam Hopkins, the Mary Widow, oh my God. Mary Widow with Maurice Chavallier and Jeanette MacDonald. Blue Beards, Eighth Wife with Claudette Colbert and Gary Cooper, Ninochka Force with Greta Gabon, Moving Douglas, Shop Around the Corner with Margaret Sullivan. Of course, Margaret Sullivan. That uncertain feeling with Melvin Douglas to be or not to be is a movie that makes, not the Mel Books version, the original version, the original 1942 version with Carol Lombard and Jack Benny. One of the funniest movies ever. It does make fun of the Nazis. So you have to, you know, heaven can wait with Gene Tierney and Don Amici, Clooney Brown with Charles Boyer and Jennifer Jones. One of my personal favorite movies is Clooney Brown. Hard to find. We've got the DVD here of it. That is a wonderful movie. So yeah, there you go. I've just given you like 10 great movies and benevolent movies and movies you're just not going to find of that kind of quality and benevolence in being made, being made today or really made since that, kind of that era. All right. Yes. So those, those are some, some, right, Andrew says, a friend asked me if he should have his wedding in Greece despite his parents being deeply opposed to it, being opposed to the marriage or to the, or to the wedding in Greece. They're having it in Greece. I said you should do what will make you happy. Absolutely. He immediately decided to go to Greece. Great. And you know, his parents will grin and bear it. Bradley says, I sometimes make people feel uncomfortable because I don't like small talk. It feels fake and pointless to me. Do you have examples of this in your own life and has it ever caused you any problems? No, not really. I mean, because I don't mind small talk. I don't think it's pointless. I find small talk is a way of getting to know somebody. It's a way of getting some insight into who they are, their character. Small talk in a sense of what do you do? You know, do you like to party? You know, do you like, I mean, all of those are going to tell you something about their values. They're going to tell you something about how they express themselves. They're going to tell you something about the kind of attitude they have. So I have no problem with small talk. Small talk should be viewed as a means to get to know somebody, a means to get to know somebody. And small talks does not have to be meaningless. I mean, granted, there's not a lot of point in talking about the weather, but there are lots of other small talk kind of things that are worthwhile to engage in. Again, like, what do you do? What's going on in your life? But yeah, even is the food here any good or stuff like that? It just, again, you know, it shows the other person you have interest in them, which creates a base of communication. And it's... His answers are going to tell you something about his values and often use small talk with somebody. He says, well, I'm glad we just did small talk because I would have hated a waste heavy talk on this idiot or this person I probably don't really like. So small talk is a great introductory and it's a great warm-up for something more substantial. Anyway, that is... That's my view. So I think it's... I don't think it's healthy to view small talk that way. Again, greasing... Greasing conversations is not a bad thing. Getting to know somebody is not a bad thing. And you get to know people from the... You know, people are... Often what's important about people are the kind of values that they have. Again, I... I might share a love of, I don't know, good food with somebody. I might share a love of classical music, opera with somebody. I might share a love of, I don't know, iPhone with somebody. And that is as important as, you know, what they think about, I don't know, the latest political issue of the day or anything else. And indeed, I might... If I go there, I might be disappointed and not find the things that we actually have in common and where I actually can benefit from having a relationship with another person. I might be able to learn something about music from them, or learn something about painting, or learn something about something that I'm interested in for a person. And if I go too deep too quickly, I might be turned off by some view that they have about something. So I... Anyway, Bradley, I don't know if that's what you were expecting, but I do not... I do not have a negative view of small talk. Frank says, Chopra on the corner spends a lot of time about fear of losing your job and being promoted in your job. The romance is secondary. Please comment. Oh, God, Frank. No, no, no, no. The romance is a theme throughout that, you know, it's the whole theme is the relationship between them, the tension between them. And at the same time, the romance that they're having through letters with the person who they don't know who this person is on the other side. It's an anonymous romance. That is the theme. It's all in the background of, yes, there's some stress, and there's some fear, and there's things that are happening in the store that might not be good, and so on. But in spite of all the stress and the fear, the theme, the thread that goes throughout the movie is this benevolence seeking of love, the benevolence seeking of romance, and then the discovery that romance is, well, I won't give it away. Anyway, so it's all about romance. This is a romantic movie, and it's all about being benevolent, and the whole point of the movie is the benevolence and the romance in spite of the challenges that they face. I mean, if there were no challenges around them, there'd be no drama in the story. There'd be no nothing there. The whole point is the contrast, the love and the effort they put into focusing on, you know, seeking love and seeking value in spite of all the tension and stress that is going on in the world around them. So that is, I think, that dominates the movie. That's what the movie really is about. And everything else is just a foil. It's just a setup. It's just a way to get you to appreciate it even more. All right, John says, who's the first person who said 1225 was chosen to coincide with 1225's Sun God holiday? I have no idea, John. What is your obsession with this? Get over yourself. I have no idea. All right, in spite of John's attempts to sidetrack us. So anyway, next few days, before I get to these more depressing questions, feel free to... I'm just looking to see if there are any movies I missed. Yeah, feel free to share more fun movies. Spend the next few days, I mean, reflecting. The next few days, I mean, through new years, I think. I think it's a really good habit to get into. Sit down, reflect, write it out. Often thinking is much, much better. You know, writing it down. But really think about what does she has been like for you? It's just personally, again, abandon the political, the cultural, you for you. What are the good things? What are the bad things? How's it played out? Do a kind of an assessment? At the same time, just because it's so easy to become negative. Make a list of all the great things in your life right now. Make a list of all the wonderful things that you have in your life that you're appreciative. This is kind of a Thanksgiving thing that I want to give thanks to, the things that make you smile, the things that value to you. And then, you know, and then, you know, focus on that, focus on what makes that possible. And really commit yourself to the good. And then commit yourself to improvement and getting better and looking at the, maybe the negative list and how to turn it positive. How to make it more positive. And then I'd say, put a line through that and think about, okay, now what? We've got 2024 is coming up. Hard to believe. I mean, for me, it's just hard to believe. The years just, you guys are, most of you younger than me, although some of you older than me. And some of you know this. Every year seems like years go by faster. Although this last year went by particularly fast, maybe because everything slowed down during COVID and suddenly everything's speeding up. But it's 2024. What do I want to achieve? You know, you don't have to make New Year's resolutions, but I think it's a great time to put pen to paper and figure out what I want to achieve in 2024. What do I want to do? What do I want to do different? What do I want to do better? Like, who was it earlier? You know, what are I going to buy to put in my dining room bedroom? How am I going to make Stringer? How am I going to make the world around me even more beautiful than it is right now? Maybe flowers, you know? Maybe just cooler furniture. Maybe another few paintings. Maybe a sculpture. Maybe, I don't know, maybe I'll paint one of the walls a cool color that I really, really like, my favorite color. I'll have one of the walls in my house be my favorite color. I don't know. Some crazy thing that you can come up with. So spend time thinking about how next year is going to be better. What you're going to do to find a better job. What you're going to do to find a girl. What you go, boy. What you're going to do to, you know, just to make your life more interesting and more fun and more exciting and more beautiful and more in your control. That's the other thing. More in your control. More purposeful, thoughtful, guided by you. It's a time to remember. Remind yourself. You have free will. Much of your day is yours. Much of your time, much of what you do is yours. You get to choose. Make the most of that. Make the most of that and maximize that. So it really is a time to dedicate yourself to Iran's rules for life. It dedicated to living a great life, to being selfish, to being happy, to being successful at living capital L, right? It's a good time to re-listen to rules for life. Until we have a book, that's the best that we have is the playlist, Iran's Rules for Life. It's on YouTube. Palguni, Palguni Patel. Says hello, Iran. Thanks for all your shows. Brought a lot of clarity to my life. Thank you. I appreciate it. That was $50. Really, really appreciate the support. Appreciate you expressing your appreciation to me. That goes a long way. Cook says Merry Christmas. Absolutely Merry Christmas. To you Cook and to everybody on the line. All right, let's just do some questions now. I don't have many left because I've been doing them throughout. Robert says, do you remember the name of the episode in which you gave a tour of your home with an emphasis on artworks and was that public or members only? Hmm. I think it was members only. I think it was members only. And do I remember? Did any of you recall if it was, I think it was members only. And I wonder which one it was. Let me, I'm quickly going to see. Not that, not that, not that. Probably not that, probably not that. Yeah, I'm not sure. It doesn't, it doesn't line up with any of the topics that I have here. Defend against her defending class. So steam fund vote. Yeah. Maybe it wasn't a members only. Maybe it wasn't. It was public Apollo says it was public. So it was public. And I don't know. It's a good question. How would you search for it? How would you search for it? I don't think that was included in my. Oh, what about what about something about surround yourself with beauty? Maybe it was one of those. Maybe it was one of the. So if you put in your on Brook show and beauty. That's not it. I don't know. It might mean your own rules for life. Part 17 beauty and art. I, you know, I don't know. That's one. That's one option. Anyway, it was their question associated associate with that. Yeah. I think it's one of these two. I think it's a show you on rules for life. Part 17 beauty and art. Check that out. If it's not that one, I can go back. Oh, Miroslav has it. Which one was it? Miroslav knows all. Yeah, I was right. Part 17. All right. Cool. That was a good show. You guys should check it out. And you should check out all the rules for life. But that was good. Let's see. Don't understand Jason's comment. You don't get disenfranchised. Christmas is not named after you. Who's that about? Who's disenfranchised? Okay. Don't know. Jason, you're going to have to let me know what you meant by that. Robert said, oh, I answered that already. That is not on topic. Lifestyles of the rich and famous. There you go. All right. Let's take some other questions and other topics. Feel free to ask questions about anything now. We'll go back. We'll come back to reality. Oh, quick reminders of a few things. Not sure when the next show is going to be. Maybe in Tuesday or Wednesday we'll do a new show. But I am maintaining the option of going on vacation and skipping those two. But we'll see. We'll see. I'm not committing one way or the other. So stay tuned. There will be a show I think Tuesday night. And then there won't be another evening show. And then of course there will be a show on December 31st. And that show you can. It'll be a review of 2023. And in addition to 2023, it will be a. So look backwards. Maybe I look forwards into 2024. Some predictions. So 2024 predictions. And it'll mainly be a fundraising show. And we're going to be raising, I don't know. Hopefully I'll have a target. Probably north of $10,000 to raise during the show. And kind of to get us off to 2024 in great spirits. And with a lot of energy around the Iran book show. And a lot of upside potential in terms of growth. So yeah, I hope everybody joins us on December 31st. And participates even if you come in for a little while. The show will probably be three hours long. But come whenever. Stay as long as you want. And support the Iran book show. So it'll be fun. You can ask questions about anything. Positive, negative, anything you want. All right, James says. From your show yesterday on the school shooter in environmental nihilists. Would you say haters are babies? They seem to be a certain immaturity and patheticness of wanting to tear reality down and destroy other people. Yeah, but why are you diminishing babies? I mean, babies are amazing. I love babies. And to say haters are babies is like, no. No, they're not. Babies don't hate. Babies are this incredible, benevolent human potential. They're wonderful, beautiful, cute, innocent. Just fabulous. Haters are pathetic. And the kind of nihilists we're talking about, the anti-life, the anti-reality, the pathetic. And there's a sense in which they've never achieved the conceptual level in that sense, the babies. But yeah, babies are too benevolent and too curious and too everything else to compare to hateful people like that. So the immature, but the immaturity is reflected in the fact that they've not achieved the conceptual level. They are driven by emotions and they are driven by, you know, perception, not conception. Maximus asks when the show starts, a 10K show starts at 2 p.m. East Coast time. I'll be putting up a pre-show thing soon so that with the timing and everything. But it's December 31st. It's a Sunday, 2 p.m. East Coast time. Jason said, is gun violence a significant concern for Europeans considering setting their schools to U.S. for education? No, I don't think so. I mean, again, depending where there are more violence cities and less violence cities in the U.S. but particularly at schools, it's just, no. I mean, most American cities are really safe and if you, you know, arm is the wrong word, right? But if you provide your kids with some basic rules about neighborhoods not to go to, ways in which just to be alert when you're walking around at night, you're fine. And again, most cities in the United States are really, really safe. Not as safe as Europe, but really, really safe. So I would not have concern about that. Again, common sense, right? Just teach them common sense. Frank says, what's Millay doing with the soccer teams? So angry. Why are you angry? What's Millay's doing something bad with the soccer teams? I think he's basically privatizing them and allowing more competition. That's my understanding. But, you know, I don't know. I haven't focused on what he's doing to the soccer teams, but I wouldn't get so angry. Not sure why. What's he done that's bad? This is the last question. So if you want to ask a question, now is the time. Otherwise, it'll be adios after this one. Why was enlightenment thinking so quickly and easily eradicated in academia, but not in the general population? Because the attack against it, because A, because it's so good. Because once it enters into day-to-day life, it's hard to give it up because it's so pro-life. It's fundamentally pro-life. Once it infiltrates into people's day-to-day life, once people are given freedom, once people are producing wealth, once people have embraced the idea that their life is their own, that their time is their own, that their value is their own, that there's no God looking over their shoulder and going to knock them dead if they do something bad. Once they accept all that, then it's in their day-to-day living. It's very hard to reverse that because it has a momentum of its own. It has a momentum of its own. So I think that's the sense in which it's very difficult to get the enlightenment out of a culture, once it's embedded in and once it's achieving and driving everything towards great achievements. Intellectually, because the arguments for the enlightenment were not that intellectually solid, it took on your hand, I think, to give them a solid bedrock, it was easy to critique them intellectually and it was easy for university professors, for intellectuals at universities who think of themselves as deep, to reject the enlightenment and to embrace kind of deeper anti-enlightenment ideologies that again, Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, and you read Hegel or you read, I don't know, the Postmodernist, and you go, who believes in this stuff? And there's a sense in which you have to be an intellectual to even believe this stuff because it's so, in so many regards, it's so flaky, it's so crazy. So yeah, it's much harder to get it out of our living because the benefits are so clear than the kind of intellectual floating abstraction unconnected to reality, theorizing, philosophizing that many intellectuals do. Cory has come in with some big bucks, Australian dollars. Thank you, Cory, 150 Australian dollars. He says, I've been watching a few Piers Morgan interviews, debates on Israel-Palestine conflict and with regard to the Muslim intellectuals, I get the feeling that they cries about innocent cousins being killed is just a pretext to wipe out the Jews and implement Sharia. Oh, that is certainly the case with the Islamists. The Islamists don't care one iota about human life, even Muslim human life. I mean, they've been slaughtering Muslims forever. They were slaughtering Muslims in Syria. They'd be slaughtering Muslims in Yemen, Shia, Sunni. In Syria, it's not even Shia, it's Sunni. It's just different disagreements about things that even... I mean, the Sunni Shia does a pretty ridiculous disagreement, but even less than that. None of these people, none of these Islamists care one iota about human life. And what they want is to wipe out the Jews. And what they want is to implement global Sharia. They want to wipe you out because they want to implement Sharia right here. They want a global empire. So, yes, absolutely. There's no question that that is the case. Not all of them, but the Islamist ones, the ones dedicated to Islamism, absolutely, they don't care about this world. They only care about the next one. I mean, and they care about killing. They care about destruction. That's a big motivation. Willa says, what's your favorite Christmas dessert? I'm gonna disappoint you, Willa. I don't really like dessert. I don't like dessert. I mean, I know what I'm gonna have for Christmas dinner for dessert. So maybe this is my favorite Christmas dessert, but it's just my favorite dessert period. So I have my favorite restaurant here in Puerto Rico. And at some point, you know, I tried this and really love it. And now every time we go there and eat, this is what they bring out. You know, my wife and I don't eat dessert, so they bring out just one scoop. It's one scoop of Mexican chocolate ice cream. It's spicy with nothing on it. No, because they usually put a little cream on it. No, just the scoop of super soft and creamy Mexican chocolate ice cream that is a little bit, a little bit spicy. Well, not a little bit spicy. I like the spicy chocolate is one of my favorites. So that's amazing. And we nibble on that as dessert. I love pumpkin pie as well. Usually when I get pumpkin pie, like at a shop or somewhere, it's just too sweet. My wife sometimes makes pumpkin pie and then she puts in a lot less sugar, like less than half of the normal amount of sugar. And that is perfect. I could probably just eat it without the sugar at all. Actually, it would be cool to put a little spice in the pumpkin pie because pumpkin and spice go well. All right, that's what I have to say about dessert. I don't generally, I don't eat dessert because I avoid sugar. I'm trying to avoid sugar completely. Corey, thank you. Merry Christmas to you too. Corey says, Merry Christmas from Australia. Chris, if we put in for a scholarship for Ocon Europe, then will we be notified if we are approved? Yes, definitely. You will be notified when you're approved. And you'll be notified if you're approved and if you haven't been approved. So I don't know when though. Soon, I assume, but I don't know exactly when. But you will be notified. And again, I think soon because the conference is coming up. It's in two months, two months in a week, something like that. Apollo, what are you having for Christmas dinner? I'm going to my favorite restaurant. We always, since we moved to Puerto Rico, we go to this restaurant for Christmas. It's called Marmalade in Old Town San Juan. And they have, it's the best restaurant in San Juan in Puerto Rico. It's amazing food. It's not easy to categorize. It typically has a great turkey dish, which we had there for Thanksgiving. But I'm not sure what we're going to get this time. He has a fantastic fish dish as the main entree with kind of coconut, foodie kind of sauce. It's really, really good. Anyway, ask me afterwards. I'll be able to tell you. Andrew says, what if anything profound did you get from Dominion? I heard the show on it, but if you were to essentialize, was there anything deep that came from it? Deep that I learned that I didn't know? I mean, I have some questions, right? I have some questions that I want to ask somebody. So the main thing I got for them was questions. I have some questions about the extent to which, and this is a view I ran held, but that I've heard other philosophers disagree with her on, that Christianity really introduces the concept of the individual, and Dominion makes this argument too, that the concept of the individual, the concept of really love is applied to human life, in the concepts of the equality, equality of rights in some way a Christian. I'm skeptical, but I don't have the proof. And Dominion makes a strong argument that yes, the concept of the individual and the concept of equality of rights came from Christianity. Now the problem with Dominion is, as I said in the review, that pretty much it's just a sweeping thing. Everything came from Christianity, and part of it's just a sequence of time, and therefore giving Christianity the, what do you call it, the causal, because Christianity was already there, which I think is silly, but not recognizing you can have a new idea while being a Christian, or you can have a new idea while living in a Christian culture. That doesn't make it Christian. I guess what I learned from it, here's the deep thing that I learned from as a positive. Well, I didn't learn from it, but it gave me more color and a deep appreciation for the extent to which Christianity elevates altruism, elevates the concept of the oppressed, the meek, the struggling, the suffering, as, you know, as Mao virtue, as Mao Li good, as, you know, not as something to be elevated, but to be celebrated and elevated, right? So that is, so altruism, altruism on a personal scale and altruism on a moral, cultural, societal scale is, I think, the thing that I got the most, and it confirmed for me the idea that at the root of communism is Christianity. I always thought that, and this really gives it the basis in some of the history that I learned, and it's really interesting, is the number of communist Christian communities that were established over the millennia just connect Christianity with communism even more. The connection, therefore, with Christianity with woke. So the extent to which Christian morality, particularly the perception of poverty, and equality of outcome have pervaded through time and have been a real part of Christianity and its influence on the West. Mechsimus, why does doing the right thing and being principled is often equated to being lonely and popular and not fitting in? Well, it's equated outside of objectivism. Objectivism, I don't think, because to do the right thing is to bring yourself suffering and pain. To do the right thing is to sacrifice. To do the right thing, if you do it the more consistently you do it, the more you make other people feel bad because they're not doing the right thing, the more you're making them look bad. And that's why I think it's associated with loneliness and popular. I mean, in all the movies, the good guy is always a suffering guy because goodness in conventional morality necessitates sacrifice, which necessitates unhappiness. And I think that's what you're seeing. Ory says, I have a lot of respect for Rob Taw, but he seems very certain that the economy market was going to crash post-COVID stimulus and was wrong, thoughts. Look, I know I've known Rob Taw. I've worked with Rob Taw for almost 30 years. We've been discussing these kind of issues certainly since the 1990s. So not quite 30 years, but 25 years. And look, Rob has a deep understanding of economics, and I think he'd be the first to agree with me on this. But turning economics into investments and turning an understanding of economics into being able to predict the economy are very different things. And I think that it's very, very complicated and very, very difficult. And if Rob struggles to do this, I don't know that anybody else can because Rob's about as good as this as I know to figure out how a particular government program, take stimulus as being one of them, filters through the economy how it will manifest itself. We know something bad will happen because of the COVID stimulus. What exactly is going to be? How it's going to manifest itself? You know, I've been wrong for the last two years. I've been predicting recession. And it still surprises me that it hasn't happened. An economy is not... I mean, I'm going to say it's unpredictable and it's detailed. For the same reason central planning is not predictable. You can predict in a big element bad things will happen. But you can't even point after the fact of the bad things because some of the bad things that happen are malinvestments. A lot of the bad things that happen are the things that would have... it's the lost opportunities, the opportunity cost. Right? So it is very, very... it's very, very difficult, maybe impossible to actually predict the business cycle works in a variety of different ways. So we did get inflation in the post-COVID stimulus. And that was the way the stimulus manifested itself. It manifested itself and prices going up. So there was a bad outcome. But inflation in terms of prices going down doesn't always cause the stock market to go down. So the stock market went down in 2022 but didn't weigh up in 2023 to compensate. And the relationship between stock market and the real economy is a complex one and is somewhat driven by monetary policy. Again, the concrete outcome of it all is really, really difficult to articulate, to figure out. You know, and I remember talking to Rob in the early 2000s, late 90s, and we agreed that interest rates were way too high. And all that happened post-ad is interest rates went down and down and down and down and down. So we were both wrong. And it's very difficult to do the macro. And again, it might be impossible, but it's certainly very difficult. And I don't know anybody who does it well, you know, well in terms of getting it all right. Now, I don't know. Rob might have gotten everything else macro 80% of the time, which would make it phenomenal. So I don't know, but you're telling me you got post-COVID wrong. I believe you and it doesn't shock me. And I like you have a huge amount of respect for Rob and admire his knowledge in economics. Paul says, did the Dominion book talk about the dark and middle ages and how much knowledge was lost compared to what was known in Roman culture? No, almost no modern historian really talks about that. You just don't see it. The extent to which the dark age is a dark is just not something that modern historians seem to want to talk about and seem to really have a clear view on. A lot of it is kind of whitewashing the knowledge part of it. You know, I've talked about this before, the ability to build tall buildings, the ability to run water, the ability to have taps, the ability to, you know, just the technology that was available, the ability to build domes. Big domes was lost, right? But they don't talk about that. And then the disappearance of Rome and the shrinkage of the population and the increase of subsistence farming and therefore the increase in misery. You find it rarely talked about. A world lit only by fire. That's the name of the book, right? It's really, really good on that. Really good on that. All right, guys. Thank you. Merry Christmas to everybody. Have a fantastic, benevolent, joyful, profitable Christmas. You know, I hope you're surrounded by people you love and that love you and I hope, yeah, I hope you have just a fantastic, fantastic time. So Merry Christmas. I will see you probably on Tuesday after Christmas either in the morning, either in the morning show or the evening show. And don't forget December 31st. We're having a big fundraising show, which is a review of 2023. Thanks, everybody. See you after Christmas. Merry Christmas. Bye.