 I have a little bit of an observation. Something occurred to me a few weeks ago. I'm a bit of an amateur writer myself and I like writing science fiction and it occurred to me that both Atlas Shrugged and Anthem can be technically classified as dystopian science fiction. In both cases, you have futuristic technology. Well, in the case of Anthem, it's truly dystopian. All of technology is broken down. Culture, economy, governance is all broken down to a medieval state. And you have a rediscovery of ancient technologies. I'll leave it at that. But in the case of Atlas Shrugged, you have John Galt who's invented these practically magical technologies that make possible, you know, they're plot devices that make possible the kind of revolution that is described in it. And it was a, huh, moment when I realized that it's dystopian sci-fi without the usual hard leftism of typical dystopian sci-fi. Yeah, no, I think that's right. Although I don't know what the definition of sci-fi is technically. So I'm not, you know, literature's not my field and... I'll just give a loose definition. And actually Atlas fits in the sense that it's usually placed in the future. Although I guess it doesn't have to be like a, what do you call it, a man in a high castle, which I only watched I think the first season would be sci-fi, but it's not set in the future. So it's set in an alternative universe. So I guess, yeah, go ahead. To take a similar example, if you look at A Scanner Darkly, that was a really interesting film based on a Philip K. Dick novel. Obviously very dystopian in his thinking, but it's set, I think even the opening, the opening explanation says a few years from now. And it's meant to be very contemporary, but there are technologies that are very sinister and they're meant to be, they could already exist now and you just don't know about it. Yeah, no, I think that makes sense. That's, I think that both, they both qualify. And, but I do think quite a few, maybe I'm wrong, but quite a bit of science fiction is kind of libertarian, free market. Some is, not always. I would say that most of the science fiction that I've seen from the late 20th century and into this century have been very left in orientation. They are in effect utopian by virtue of their dystopian views. They almost always present capitalists as the bad guys. I mean, Blade Runner is the quintessential example. Yep, I guess I got stuck on Robert Hanline and never really went anywhere from there in my science fiction. Oh, Hanline wrote some really interesting stuff and it's definitely worth looking at, but for what it's worth, I really love the ending and I apologize, cover your ears if you haven't gotten to the end of the, what's that series with the young girl who's the archer in the arena? Hunger Games. Hunger Games, Hunger Games. The very end, close your ears if you don't wanna hear this, but in the end, Katniss Everdeen realizes that the people who are presented as the good guys, the guys who are ousted are really the flip side. They're communist Nazis versus the overt Nazis. And instead of killing the now captive Hitler of her own world, she chooses to kill the commie Hitler. So is that in the movie as well? Yes, yes it is. I guess I don't remember. I watched the movies, I didn't read the books. Oh, I think it puzzles a lot of people, like why didn't she kill Snow? Snow was obviously the bad guy. Why did she kill the leader of District 13? And the reason is simply she realized that that District 13 is just as bad as the rest of Pan Am. All right, Jonathan. Tell me the value of selfishness. Use another word, self esteem. The value of selfishness is that you esteem yourself as a value that you leave according to your nature, which means by the judgment of your own mind and you respect your own mind, you respect your own ability to do the right thing, therefore you respect the possibility of being a morally virtuous person. And you regard yourself as a value worth preserving. Let me bring it down from Kant a little bit to a bromide that I had drummed into me as a child and maybe you've heard it, happiness comes from making other people happy. Oh yes, I've heard it. Who hasn't heard it? And that's the trouble. Let's aim at the day when people will not hear it anymore because it isn't true. It isn't justifiable. And the first question you would have to ask is why? Why is it good to want others to be happy but not yourself? And I suppose you will be told that well, but they will work for your happiness and not their own. Well, it's like an exchange of Christmas presents that neither party wants, but that you have to exchange presents and you're not allowed morally to do something for yourself. Whereas what I say, you can make others happy when and if. Those others mean something to you selfishly. If you love them, then you want to make them happy. Fine. If you don't love them, that's not a moral crime. You don't have to love everybody. You cannot love everybody because it's a meaningless expression. You can love only those whom you value and if they contribute to your happiness, you contribute to theirs. That's fine. But each one of you has to be selfish about it. Supposing somebody were in love with you and said I love you because you're so bad. So I sacrifice myself and I'm going to love you. Would you accept that or would you say it's the most? No, sir, I wouldn't either. That's the most insulting saying anyone could have said to you and yet that's what altruism would demand. And there is a great Russian writer who tried to practice it, Dostoevsky, who did marry a poor stupid little seamstress whom he didn't love at all out of the desire to make her happy. The end of it was she committed suicide. Now that is an altruist practice. That's what altruism leads to. How about it's more blessed to give than to receive? Well, that's obviously the welfare state. That's a clearly motivated slogan. To please give me something and you'll be blessed but I will keep your material good. Using the super chat and I noticed yesterday when I appealed for support for the show, many of you stepped forward and actually supported the show for the first time. So I'll do it again. Maybe we'll get some more today. If you like what you're hearing, if you appreciate what I'm doing, then I appreciate your support. Those of you who don't yet support the show, please take this opportunity, go to uranbrookshow.com slash support or go to subscribestar.com uranbrookshow and make a kind of a monthly contribution to keep this going. I'm not sure when the next.