 Fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights. This is the Iran Brook Show. All right, everybody. Welcome. Happy Thanksgiving to everybody. Oops. No, we're good. I hope everybody's having a great Thanksgiving, a great week. And I've missed you guys. It's been a while. We went like four days without a show. God. It's been a rough month for shows, traveling, getting a little sick, then having guests. Just not a good time. Why not kill before a British birthday party, your birthday party, Thessie? Is it happy birthday to you? Anyway, sorry that we haven't had as many shows as I would have expected the last week or so. We are going to get back on schedule now, so at least for a little while. We will have a show tomorrow. We'll have a show on Saturday and Sunday. We'll have a show on Tuesday probably next week. And then, you know, we'll be back early December. We'll have to go to Austin for my debate with Yoram Khazani. That's going to be a lot of fun. Hopefully those of you in Texas, those of you in the Austin area, will be joining us for that debate. It should be a blast. So that is December 8th. That's December 8th. So yeah, if you're in Austin, join us. I look forward to seeing you guys all there. Probably have another Lex Friedman thing coming up as well. So while I'm in Austin, we might be doing something with Lex. So that would be cool because those are always fun and interesting and engaging. So hopefully you'll participate. You know, you'll look forward to that. Yeah, I mean, I see Europeans and Brits because it's just the evening for you guys. So it's morning. We probably won't get a lot of Californians because it's just still waking up in California on Thanksgiving mornings. So hopefully we'll get a good turnout today. We'll see so far. It's a little slow, but hopefully we'll get a good turnout today if not people listen to it later. But yes, Thanksgiving Day is not the best time to do a show, but I figure, hey, it's Thanksgiving. And this is a great opportunity for me to say thank you. Thank you to a lot of different people, but thank you to you guys, all of you who listen regularly to the show, or some of you don't maybe not regularly. Thank you, Colin, for contributing to the show right now, $20. Happy Thanksgiving to you too. ECHO just started. ECHO, other people are hearing an ECHO? Let me know if other people are hearing an ECHO. I have no idea. Oh, we got somebody from Jamaica here. We do have one person in California. We've got Brits here. We've got a number of Brits, I think. Let me know if other people are hearing an ECHO other than Wanda Freeman. And so I want to say thank you to you guys, particularly those of you who support the show in one way or another, whether it's through the Super Chat, whether it is on a monthly contribution, which is amazing on uranbookshow.com. Also on Patreon, subscribe to our local. So thank you all guys for doing that. It's what keeps the show going. It keeps me motivated. It gives me an indication whether people show up live to listen to the show or not. It gives me an indication people are listening, people value what they're hearing, and it is a value to use. Those of you who do not yet contribute to the show, thanks. Giving us a great time to go on to uranbookshow.com. To support or to Patreon or subscribe and make kind of a schedule a monthly contribution to the show, value for value as traders. Oh, there's Jeffrey. What happened? He just deleted, retracted his message. Jeffrey from New York, Jeffrey Miller, whose restaurant I had so much fun eating at. Seems like yesterday, but I know I can't read. A month ago, two months ago, I can't. I've given up on trying to keep track of time. If I don't can look at a calendar, I have no idea when was what and what was when. So we go from there. Yes. So thank you guys for all your support. And I thought it would be a good time for us to all kind of step back a little bit, step back from the craziness and the nuttiness and the negativity and critical race theory and whatever. And just think about the values, the values we have in this world. And in a sense, just give thanks to those values and talk a little bit and think a little bit about, you know, the things we should be and can be thankful about the things we should be and can be proud of. You know, during, during, during Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving is a great holiday. I think the whole holiday season from Thanksgiving to to Christmas is a great time to introspect. It's a great time to think, to contemplate and to plan. This is the time I do my kind of annual planning, if you will, like what's worked this year, what hasn't worked this year, what I want to change for next year, what I want to do different, what I want to do different over the next five years, ten years. So it's not so much for me like New Year's resolution. It's more from Thanksgiving to New Year is the time to really invest in, in thinking about these things and planning around them and considering what to do in terms of short-term and long-term planning. So I like this time of year. It's, it's a slower time of year. It's a time of year that, you know, everything will kind of slows down a little bit. People's expectations slow down a little bit, although we won't be slowing down here at the Iran Book Show. And just mentally you slow down a little bit. So I hope all of you take the opportunity over the next six weeks or so to just step back a little bit and, and do your annual planning. You know, the New Year's resolutions are kind of the end, should be an end of a process, even if you have resolutions. They should be the end of that process of, you know, having that strategic plan, really strategically thinking about what it is I want to do, how it is I want to do it, and what worked, what didn't work, where do we go from here? So we'll definitely be doing that with the Iran Book Show. This is a good time to send me any suggestions you might have or recommendations you might have on things we could be doing different, better, and so on. So go ahead and, and do it. All right. Jean says, happy Thanksgiving. It's been too long since I was able to catch one of these. Thank you for all the value you've provided me this last year. Thank you, Jean. Really appreciate it. Really appreciate your, your support. Jeffrey, I just popped back on, but on the super chat this time. Many thanks for sending people to the restaurant. Yeah, I mean, I've heard from a few people who, who listened to the show, who beat to the restaurant, who got to meet Jeffrey and, and had a great time. So happy to do it. Happy to, another little way in which I can provide value to the listeners of the show. You know, if you're in New York, it's a great experience. You said, I deleted the first one because I forgot to add cash. Hoping I'll pass cross again. They, they, as long as, as long as you're a chef, they certainly will, will cross. I am sure. He's asking my favorite Kubrick movie. My favorite Kubrick movie is easy, actually, because it is his. I mean, I think this is true. I need to, let me just check, right? Yeah, so my favorite Kubrick movie is the least Kubrick-like movie, right? It's an atypical movie, but Kubrick, I'll say a few words about Kubrick because it's, my favorite Kubrick movie by far is Spartacus. I think it's a, it's a fantastic movie. It's a fantastic story. It's a, it's a, it's a great movie for, for, I think you guys would all enjoy Spartacus. I can't think of any downsides to it. It's with Coke Douglas, Gene Simmons, Lawrence Olivier. Get the, I think there's a director's cut because at the time it was a little, there were one scene. It was a little too risque for, for the, for, there was cut, but ultimately was returned by the director. So I encourage you all to, you know, to, to watch Spartacus. It is definitely a Stanley Kubrick movie from 1960. I think it's his second movie, his first or second movie, if I remember right. So let's get a list. You know, today was going to, it's going to be a fun day today because I'll take questions and all kinds of things. But, but let's try to orient everything around positive values. If you have questions, this is like the good kind of question about movies, about, about good things, about things you like, about things you admire. This is the Thanksgiving show. So we want to focus on the positive. We want to focus on things that we like. And, and so Stanley Kubrick is, is definitely an opportunity to do that. So we'll go, I'm going to go in a minute over like the Stanley Kubrick movies and give you a sense of, you know, what I like. So, let's see, I just want to expand the screen here so I can get more of them. All right. I would just want to say thank you, Daniel. Really appreciate it. Thank you, Simon. Happy Thanksgiving. Trevor writes happy Thanksgiving to everyone. You're on. Thanks for the hard work advocating for reason and like my values. Thank you, Trevor. And thank you for the support. Really appreciate it. So Stanley Kubrick, I mean, Stanley Kubrick started making movies I guess 1953 really. So Spartacus was not a second, second movie. It was like his 123456 movie. He made his name with a film noir called The Killing, which, which is quite good. Or even before that, I think Killers Kiss. Pass of Glory is a very good, also with Kirk Douglas, I think, very good anti-war movie about World War One, very powerful movie. After Spartacus, he made Lolita. I'm not a great fan of Lolita generally as a story and not particularly, but Stanley Kubrick was a great director and he did a good job with that movie. One of my favorites and crazy movie that if you haven't watched is definitely worth watching. It's funny. It's super entertaining. It's a great acting job. And that's Dr. Strangelove. I don't know how many of you knew that that was a Stanley Kubrick movie, but that is a fantastic movie in which Peter Sellers plays, I don't know, five, six different roles. It is brilliant in all of them. So it's one of the great Peter Sellers movies. It's a comedy with a political edge to it, anti-war again, but very, very well made, very funny, very entertaining. And again, Peter Sellers is truly brilliant. After Dr. Strangelove, Stanley Kubrick make a movie that some of you mentioned is your favorite and certainly maybe the most famous of all of Stanley Kubrick's movies. And that's 2001, A Space Odyssey, 1968, beautifully made, smart movie with an ending that makes no sense. It's based on an Odyssey Clock book. It's a completely bizarre, weird, nonsensical ending. But the movie is beautiful and slow and because it's a lot of kind of themes in both thematically and in terms of the filming of a lot of sci-fi that followed it. So a real breakthrough movie. One of the things you'll notice about Kubrick is he made movies in almost every genre and they were different. They were breakthrough in every genre. So he was an interesting filmmaker, even if many of his movies I don't like. Like 2001 is beautiful and everything, but it's meaningless at the end. I don't think it means anything. I think it's pretentious and meaningless, although I'm sure some of you think otherwise. Cook, thank you, really appreciate it. Paulo, thank you, really appreciate it. Let's see. After 2001 he made A Clockwood Orange, which was for a while a movie I really liked. Of course, it's a very sick movie. It's a very, very violent movie. It's themes all over the place, but it's an awful, awful use of, I think it was Beethoven's fifth. It took me a while before I could listen to Beethoven's fifth again because of kind of the context in which Beethoven's fifth is used in the movie. If you're going to watch Clockwood Orange, which is a very well made movie and very well acted, I mean it's very, very spooky, but Malcolm McDowell is brilliant in it. You've got to have a real stomach for it. You've got to have a real stomach for it, so it's extraordinary violence. It uses Beethoven's ninths, that's right, Beethoven's ninth, not fifth. It uses Beethoven ninths, but an awful effect. It's really an evil theme and an evil movie in many respects, but it's, again, like everything Stanley Kubrick made, it's very, very well done. Let's see, Barry Lyndon was after that in 1975, slow, a little boring, never saw the point in it, didn't really enjoy it that much. But again, like for an historical slow period piece, again, Stanley Kubrick made the very slow period piece. Then he did a horror movie, one of the great horror movies of all time, I think, with Jack Nicholson, The Shining, The Shining, very effective. I hate horror movies, I hated this movie, but it's very powerful, very edge of your seat. It works, it works, right? Low legend writes, hey Ron, I'm doing a master's in PhD six years, oh, is doing a master's PhD six years worth it? I'll answer in a second. I really enjoyed academia, but working in industry could earn me much more, I'm 23. I'll get back to that, that's a good question. I will get to it. Let's see, so The Shining, if you like horror movies, it's a classic. He made 2010, which was the sequel to 2001, not as good. It was then made in 1984. 1987, full metal jacket, not a good movie, quaw movie. It really has, it doesn't come together around anything, very violent, very gratuitous. Can't say I enjoyed full metal black, of all his movies, I think it's just not that well made. Eyes White Shut, which is more of a sex alienation, I don't know with what's the name, the Australian actress, with Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise. Never quite got Eyes White Shut, so I didn't particularly like it. Yeah, that was about it. None of the other movies he made, I think that's about it. Everything else is about him or there's nothing else here, yep. So yeah, an important filmmaker and a lot of interesting movies, a lot of kind of leading movies within their genre. I don't think it was porno, Apollo says it was porno. I don't think it was porno. I just think it wasn't, again, it didn't add up to anything. It wasn't that interesting. It had something to say about sex and about repression and about relationships, but it was, I found it boring and for a movie to have sex and for me to find a boring, that's an achievement of the movie. All right, Lowe says, is doing a master's and PhD worth it? Well, it depends, right? It depends on what you're doing it in. So is it in the humanities, is it in the sciences, is it in the engineering? What is it about academia do you like? What is it that you're passionate about academia? And why do you like academia? Is it about the research? Is it about the teaching? What do you want to be when you grow up? What ultimately do you want to do? So it really, really depends on so many factors. And then do you realize and depend on the field, right? Some fields it's going to be very, very difficult. Like in a lot of the humanities, the supplier PhDs far exceeds the demand for PhDs. So there's just not a lot of jobs out there. Are you ready to spend six years getting a PhD in some topic where you'll never actually be able to work in academia? So I need a lot more information to be able to give you advice about whether it's worth it or not, or whether it's a good idea or not. So, all right. All right. Thanks, guys. I see a bunch of you are using the Super Chat feature. Really appreciate it. We're at about 120 bucks. It'd be great if we got to 600. It'd be great if we did more than that. It is Thanksgiving after all. And I haven't done a bunch of shows. I haven't done any shows for a while. So anything you can do today to bump up our overall for the month would be fantastic. And I promise not to mention this again until towards the end of the show. And, you know, we do have Catherine here, Catherine Nendes, who is going to help us out by both calculating how much you guys are giving and encouraging you to do more and thanking everybody. So that is great. Let's see. Ali says, why people are collective in thinking? I can easily predict people thought and idea about something just by looking on the background left or right. Yeah. I mean, the sad thing is that individual independent thinking, thinking independently is rare. It is not something, you know, we encourage it is not something that is taught very well. It takes courage in a world that respects and, you know, where you expect it to fit in where the tribe is everything where the group is everything. It takes courage to stand out. You know, so many parents tell their kids to fit in to not be too different to not think too outside of the box. It's just something we don't encourage. We don't really push. Right. And it's not something that's particularly rewarded. It is in entrepreneurial activities, but in much of the world it just isn't rewarded. Indeed, as I said, it's often punished. And in particular, you know, there are periods in history where people tend to be more first handed. And I think America is probably the most first handed nation in human history. Independent thinkers were encouraged, you know, were supported, were rewarded. It was a land where that was expected. You came here with nothing. You built something. And in that kind of context, following a tribe, following a group doesn't help you. It hurts you. It suppresses. It holds you back. So the more we make people dependent, the more we give people welfare, the more we make people, you know, live by some, you know, not from their own effort, the more collectivist they're going to become. So as capitalism declines in the West, you will see, you will also see independent thinking declining in the West, right? So I think those go together. I think the less free we are, the more collectivistic our thinking will become, right? So Daniel says, again, oh, Ragnar of the Desert, thank you. That's incredibly generous. Really, really appreciate that. That gets us, you know, we're now with everybody here. We're getting close to 300. So we're about halfway where we need to be. So really appreciate you guys. Daniel says, I saw an exhibit of the Sistine Chapel. I got emotional both times I went in a number of cities. I can't recommend it to your fans enough. Google it. You will find it. Happy Thanksgiving. Wow. Thank you for the recommendation. I'll look it up. I didn't know there was an exhibit of the Sistine Chapel. Of course, the best exhibit of the Sistine Chapel is the Sistine Chapel. But if there's something that explains it and details it, it's an amazing story. If you've never read about the painting of the Sistine Chapel, what Michelangelo went through to paint it and what it represents, then you should. There is a fantastic book on by Irving Stone. Irving Stone. Let me just find it. Here's another really good recommendation. I think you'll love this. Irving, Irving. I think it's Irving Stone. Let's see. Yeah, the Agony and the Ecstasy. There's also a movie, but I recommend the book. But I highly recommend the book, The Agony and the Ecstasy. It's a biographical novel of Michelangelo, which is written by Irving Stone, and it really, really, really is good. So the Agony and the Ecstasy. It's fantastic. And you'll learn so much about art, about Michelangelo. I mean, I don't know how accurate it is. It's a novel. But it captures something about Michelangelo. That's true. There's no question. It's true. So, yes. But one of the things you can do is if you go to, if you're in Rome on a Friday, I think for like $250 you can get an evening tour of the Sistine Chapel. Generally, because the price is relatively high, few people take advantage of that. So you can go to the Sistine Chapel and not be with a million people around you with massive crowds. You can actually get a great experience of just you and, well, you won't be alone, but there'll be some people there, but it'll be relatively empty and you can, you can just enjoy it. I tried to lie down and just look up and I was quickly told I had to stand up and I couldn't lie down on the floor of the Sistine Chapel. But any kind of perspective to get to the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, it's just magnificent. So Friday nights for $250 a person, you can get up in a sense, quote, private. It's not completely private, but a private tour of the Vatican Museum in the Sistine Chapel, definitely worth the money. No question. It's worth saving up, especially so you can do it. So I encourage you guys to do that. Ali writes, is it possible to sponsor interview with Tulsi? I'd like to see authentic politicians are when they get challenged by intellectual. I mean, I don't think Tulsi, I mean, I could try and get her and then let you know and, you know, if I get it, you can sponsor it. I just don't think she'll do it. I don't think she's interested. I don't think she'd be interested in being challenged by an intellectual. I don't think there's no upside for politician to go through that. They can only look worse as a consequence. And I don't like Tulsi and I don't like almost anything she stands for and I would challenge her in almost every position she has. So what's, what does she got to gain from it? I don't think anything and as a consequence, I don't think she would ever agree. I don't think she would ever agree to do it. Let's see. Shazba, did you listen to Sweet Child of Mine? Not yet, but I will. I promise. And I know the song. I know the song. I'm pretty sure I know the song, but I'll check it out because just in case I don't know it and it's still true that if I could save time in a bottle, it would still be more preferable just because it brings up so many memories of my teen years, not always pleasant memories of being a teenager. Those were not my best years, but still, it's got nostalgia associated with it. Shana Baleed is providing. Thank you for your 13 rules for life. Really appreciate that. Thank you. Jeffrey says, I admire your ability to stay on course in the Mackie debate while he was putting words in your mouth. Yeah, I mean, unfortunately he engages in ad hominem or storm anning constantly. It's frustrating because I think he likes me, but I found it frustrating and I tried to avoid doing that because I actually respect the guy and admire him. Certainly as a businessman, I admire him. So I would never do that, but it was difficult. It's not my favorite debate and that issue is there's still a lot. I need to think more about how to formulate and how to argue that issue because I don't think I'm done with that issue at all. All right, I'm going to keep answering these super chat questions and then I'll do my Thanksgiving spiel, which is a must for Thanksgiving. And I think you'll enjoy. Let's see, Michael asks, did you ever get in a fight with another professor while you were teaching at a university? I mean, what does it mean a fight? I mean, I got into arguments with lots of professors while I was teaching at university. I never got into a fight fight. I've done that since I was a teenager, I think. But, yeah, I got into, I can't remember, nothing sticks in my mind, but yes, I did get into arguments with lots of professors while I was a teacher, a professor. Michael O's asked, when I make the case for objectivism, I often hear the rebuttal, the only thing that is absolute and certain is mathematics. Why can't people see absolutes beyond that? Well, they're being taught, and mathematics is easy, it's value neutral. See, people don't want to see absolutes beyond that because they don't want to commit to the values that they don't connect to emotionally. So, they refuse to challenge their religiosity, they refuse to challenge their altruism, they refuse to challenge their collectivism, and so it's easier for them to say that just know absolute, what's good for you is good for you, what's good for me is good for me. And that way they don't have to think about it, and if they applied the rigorous logic and reason that they applied to mathematics, all these other things, it would actually challenge the way they live and what they do, and they're just not brave enough, if you will. They don't have the courage to actually do that. Roland says, can't watch live, but I thought I'd quickly drop in and say happy things. I mean, thank you, Roland. Really appreciate it. Thanks for all the support on the Super Chat. Really appreciate it. Same for Michael, same for many of you who are regular supporters on the Super Chat. Dave says, are people too quiet cowardly to embrace objectivism? It takes a heroic level of honesty and truth-seeking to become an objectivist. Yes, I think cowardly has a lot to do with it. There are a lot of social pressures. Objectivism requires you to question many of your beliefs, and it's not like they hold objectivism and they turn it away. They reject it. They get hints of what objectivism would require them to think, to challenge, to address. They read Atlas Shrugged and there are enough hints in Atlas Shrugged of all the things that they would have to change in their lives in order to get aligned with these ideas in the book. And while they enjoy the book, while it inspires them, while it gets them excited, while it motivates them, they're also afraid to go further, to embrace it. So it's not like they study all of objectivism and then they say, okay, I get the whole system, now it turned it away. Some people do that, but that's weird. Most people reject it before they even try it. They reject it just based on the fact that they know at some deep level that it's going to challenge, they deeply help believe, and they don't want to do that. They don't want to do that. All right, Michael, and to the rest of you, I want positive questions today. I want values-oriented questions today. Michael asked, do you believe the judge showed unjust bias during the Rittenhouse trial? I'm going to talk about Rittenhouse trial tomorrow, so why don't we postpone that to the show tomorrow? And generally, don't ask me political questions, don't ask me negative questions. Let's try to stay positive. Thankful. Thanksgiving and holiday spirit and all that. Let's do that. Tomorrow, I promise, we'll get into politics and we'll get into all the crap. Michael asks, seems like virtue is up-pacing vice, which is why we haven't collapsed and may never collapse. Yeah, I think that's right. And one of the things we should all be thankful to is the virtuous people out there, primarily the productive people out there. I'll talk about that in a minute, that are producing and creating the wealth that we all benefit from enormously on a day-to-day basis and why we can live the way we can live today. Adam writes, this year, I'll start with thanks to Kizamaki Kobe. I will be safe thanks to three shots of Moderna. Absolutely. And Eric Yuan, second year in a row, and to the people of America for keeping America the economy where heroes like EY and KC can still be heroes. Any to add? Yes, I'm going to add quite a few, and I'm going to, maybe not by name, but certainly by, anyway, I'll add in a little while. But yes, I'm going to be thankful to a lot of people who are keeping us safe and keeping us alive and keeping us wealthy and keeping us flourishing and keeping my technology working and keeping all that. We'll talk about that in a minute. Lola Lagarde says, I am a CS major now an RA and earning a good 50K a year. Going for PhD means not earning much money for six years, but moving to Canada from golf worth it. Oh, to get out of the golf? Absolutely. Absolutely, to get out of the golf. So getting a master's and PhD is a great way to get into the United States, Canada, other places like that. And so it's worth it just to get into the country. And then if you also like teaching computer science and you like kind of thinking about it and doing the research about it, then absolutely, it's worth it. But it's certainly just worth the ability of getting out of the golf and getting into North America the six years that you'll spend getting a PhD. And all of that makes it a thumbs up in my book. Again, you're going to have to choose your values, your context, but yes, absolutely. Yeah, Michael wants to talk philosophy does not want to be positive and get into the spirit of Thanksgiving. Come on, Michael. It's Thanksgiving today. What's your proof that consciousness isn't physical material? I don't have one. If it is physical material, it abides by laws that have not yet discovered. It's a new form of material and physical, but I don't know. I have no proof one way or the other what consciousness is or is not. It doesn't strike me as material based on what we know about material given our state of knowledge today. But I don't have any proof of that. Nobody has proof of that. Nobody has proof of the opposite either. It is what it is, right? Consciousness is we know we're conscious. We can observe it directly, but we have, you know, from a scientific understanding of what is consciousness. How does it materialize from the world, from the biological world? Nobody knows. Michael also asked, unfortunately, today's world, it's not only even people who live in hell. It's good people trying to do the right thing surrounded by nihilism and the irrational who are also suffering from depression and anxiety. True, true, true, true, but we're going to ignore that today. And we are going to contemplate today how amazing life is on planet Earth right now. All over planet Earth, people, human beings, like you and me, or not like you and me, but human beings here, we've got low legard in the Gulf, right? In the Gulf. A very different culture than what many of us are living in. We've got Europeans here. We've got people from all over the world listening. And there's a lot of people not listening, billions of them. And their life is better today from a material perspective than life on planet Earth has ever been. We live in the richest period in human history. We live from a violence perspective in the safest period, pretty much, in human history. There are fewer wars. There are fewer people dying at the hands of their own government, at the hands of civil wars, at the hands of violence, including crime. We live, most of humanity today, an overwhelming majority of humanity today, lives with electricity and with water. Many of us, again, a vast majority of humanity, live today with cell phones and telecommunication devices that are just stunning and amazing. We have opportunities to enjoy. We have time on our hands, time, the most precious thing in the world, the rarest thing in the world, if you will. We have time because we're so wealthy we can basically produce our survival needs relatively easy and relatively quickly and relatively cheaply. And as a consequence of that, we have plenty of time to do other things, to think about other things, to engage in other kind of activities. We don't have to work 24-7. We can engage in hobbies and in artistic pursuits and in friendships and in parties laid into the night and lots of activities that we just couldn't afford. We couldn't have time. We couldn't contemplate even engaging in, in a different era, in a different time. It's so important to be able to sit back and realize how amazing the world is today, how rich we are, how wealthy we are, how easy, easy in the positive sense our lives are. And then of course it's important to think why that is and what makes that possible. And of course what makes that possible is the genius of so many people, the creative ability of the great people that we live with on this planet. In particular the people who have the advantage of living in places that are free, in places where they can pursue their values, pursue their ideas, pursue their thoughts, pursue science, pursue new innovation, new ideas, new projects. It is the world around us did not just appear as so many people both left and right today believe. It was not just plopped here by God or somebody, it just didn't just arrive fully formed with iPhones and cars and nice buildings and great restaurants and just, it didn't just show up like this. The world in which we live was created. I'm a creationist in this sense. It was created by human beings. It was created by human beings who use their minds to create it. It was created by productive people, by people who built and made and created stuff and thought outside of the box and then took risks and made something. Whether they came out west in a hundred and something years ago, whether they built up great industries like Carnegie and Rockefeller, whether they pursued a dream and built great companies like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, the first founders of Genentech and Moderna and BioNTech, they have made this world and of course let's not forget the architects and the real estate developers. I mean we take people for granted. We take the great productive genius for granted. People who imagine, who look at a plot of land that's empty where there's nothing there. And they can imagine homes and businesses and offices and gas stations and roads and they can imagine and not only can they imagine it but they can bring all the resources together and build it. I mean I live in this amazing condo connected to other condo buildings in an office building not far and some restaurants downstairs and right on the water and there's an artificial wall that prevents the water from flooding our garage and knocking down this building. And somebody had to do all that. Somebody had to do all that. When you look around your neighborhood somebody had to develop and design and build the streets and put in the cables that give you internet and electricity and everything else. You know and it's the great minds that think about this, that imagine it, that make it a reality. It's the workers who actually go and let's not forget. You know the productive workmen who actually go out there and work and build and make and create and produce all the beautiful things, the amazing things that we again just live our lives in. This is not nature. We don't live in nature. I'm not thankful to nature. Nature just is here. It just plonged here. But human life as we live it today is created. It's created by the creators. It's created by the productive and in Thanksgiving we should say our thank you to the people who have created and are creating our amazing modern world. And even at the time of seemingly infinite irrationality, infinite stupidity, infinite maliciousness on all sides in politics and just in a day to day life. All of that is so far at least negligible. A sideshow as compared to all the good things that are being produced and created every single day. You know we've lived through this COVID epidemic now, pandemic for two years, shockingly for two years. And everybody has screwed this up. Our politicians have screwed this up and our advisors have screwed this up and our scientists have screwed this up. The scientists particularly who give us advice at the upper governmental levels. But at the same time, there have been people who have been really thinking about this. I've been looking for solutions and looking for rational guidance. And as I have mentioned many times on the show, two days after the genome of COVID virus was known, there was already a vaccine in a sense that the formula was there. Both at Moderna and at BioNTech. So I am continue to be thankful to Moderna and BioNTech. Not to the FDA, not to the CDC, but to Moderna and BioNTech and all the scientists and all the thinkers. And I mean the Hungarian scientists who stuck with mRNA in spite of not getting government grants and not being getting an associate professor I think position at a university and just sticking with it and now she works for BioNTech. The capitalists behind Moderna and the people who worked at Moderna who couldn't have created this platform, couldn't find a use for it, didn't make any money for years and years and years and years and kept going and kept going. And then when COVID hit they found the perfect use for it. And you can complain about the vaccines and maybe they haven't lived up to everything we were promised about them. And I'll be discussing that maybe you know as well but they have certainly changed our lives, made our lives much better, made it possible for us to cope with this virus much better, much healthier way. And even if this virus is relatively mild and COVID is I think on the grand scale of things relatively mild, the technology that these thinkers, these creators, these builders have made is one that will be used for more serious pandemics, more serious diseases. And if we're smart we'll learn from COVID and when the next one happens we'll be so much better off and if it's deadlier we'll be so much better off to deal with it because we'd live through COVID if we're willing to learn the lessons. And I think there are people out there learning the lessons. So I'm thankful for all of those. I'm thankful for people like Amish Adulja who I think has done a phenomenal job of calling COVID right and yet has been attacked from all sides constantly. And I'm sure there are lots of out there physicians and doctors and researchers who have struggled because of these attacks left and right. We'll talk more about that again tomorrow. And I'm going to have Amish on the show again soon to update us kind of on where we stand with COVID and vaccines and the latest about vaccines. But I am thankful to all those who have again built and created the modern world. I read some amazing books this year just recently so they're at the top of my mind, right? I read the book The Code Breakers about the bioengineering revolution that we're living through and about CRISPR, the technology to edit genes. And it's stunning. It's stunning. The hero of this, Dr. Dalton, is an amazing woman, a real hero. I'm thankful to her. I think I'm going to benefit tremendously in the next 20 years from the technology that she has invented and from the work that she is doing in bioengineering and in gene therapies. And I think all of us are going to. So I'm thanking her now and in advance both for being an inspiration and for the technologies that she's developing. But one of the things that came across in that book is how many people, how many people participate? How many people engaged with these kind of achievements, these discoveries? Like how many people added value, were productive, were creative and added to the value of a CRISPR or any kind of new science and new technology. So while they are geniuses and they are real men and women of ability who are really at the forefront of these things and make them possible and innovative and push everybody else to great achievements. The achievements are made possible because of the hard work of millions and millions and millions of people who are exemplars of the virtues of productiveness at whatever level they are capable of. Not everybody is going to be that genius who moves things forward in dramatic ways. So I'm thankful to all of them, all of them. Primarily to the geniuses because they have the biggest impact on my life. So in spite of it being a very, very difficult period for philosophical, political reasons, it's still inspiring to me to go outside just to see productive activity going on. To catch up on the latest and coolest and greatest technology that's out there, the greatest and coolest stuff that is being produced and being created. I love tech. I'm always contemplating buying the next little gizmo to play around with. I'm pretty good at being disciplined about not always doing it, but I love the fact that people are constantly thinking of better ways. I love the fact that all those technologies that were really ramped up during last year because of COVID have now, this year, just taken off and become more stable and easier to use and more integrated from Zoom to Teams to all these things. That we became dependent on last year. This year has just become robust and really good. So there is a lot to be thankful for. Jennifer, thank you. I really appreciate that. And of course, you know, you should in your own life look around you and figure out what you should be thankful for. What you should be thankful for given your life. And I'm sure there are lots of things. There are lots of things out there in the world, people you've never met that you're thankful to. But there are some sure people in your life that are important to you, whether you tell them or whether you just take a minute to appreciate them and to think about it. It's always good to tell people, you know, justice is the virtue of not just condemning people. Justice is not going after the bad guys. Justice is not, you know, putting them in jail and condemning evil. The primary aspect of justice, the most important part of justice is recognizing, elevating, appreciating, thanking the good. So whoever in your life is good, good for you, good for your life, good for your happiness, good for your success. This is the time of year. This is the period where it's, this is your opportunity to say thanks, little pat on the back, whether it's an employee, whether it's a loved one, whether it's just a neighbor that inspires you, whether it's somebody who, I don't know, a restaurant owner, a waiter, a whatever. They just do a phenomenal job. They just make your life just a little bit better. Saying, good job, well done, thank you, is priceless. And it's the true act of justice, a true act of justice. It's what that virtue really means. We tend, as a culture, as a society, we tend to focus and obsess about the negative. There are a variety of reasons for that. Actually, I'm going to talk about that in one of the future shows about this, because I'm reading Stephen Pinker's book on rationality, and it has some interesting things to say about this. But we obsess about the negative. And, and we have a justice system, which is supposed to catch the bad guys. And the whole concept of justice is skewed towards penalizing evil. And it shouldn't be. And you shouldn't in your life. In your life, the concept of justice should be skewed towards thanking, appreciating, patting on the back, the good. Because what does it mean that somebody is the good? It means they add value. They add, and since you're interacting with them, they add value to your life. And what's more important in life than those values that make your life better, greater, happier, more successful? And if you can say the thank you, pat them on the back and increase their motivation and inspire them to do even more, then your life becomes better. Justice is about bringing close to you the good and distancing yourself from the bad, surrounding yourself with the good. So again, this is a great time of the year to think about that, to consider who are the good people in your life. Who do you want to thank? Who do you want to be close to, surround yourself with? And who not? And who not? Life is too short to waste it. Life is too short to waste it on people who don't deserve it. Life is too short to waste it on people who don't add value to you. So positive reinforcement, positive, that's what you should be doing, particularly on Thanksgiving. So many people spend so much of their time, so much of their energy, so much of their effort on the negative. What a waste. So as I said, I'm thankful to all productive people in the world out there. I'm particularly thankful to the geniuses who make my life better, productive geniuses who make my life better, scientific geniuses who make my life better, specifically and thankful to everybody who has produced stuff during COVID that has made my life better in particular and who continues to produce, whether it's vaccines or whether it's... I mean, we'll talk about this again tomorrow, but isn't it amazing now that we have Pfizer and Pfizer and one other company, I forget the name now, it's on the tip of my tongue, have now got a pill that basically will eliminate death from COVID, take out the real risk of COVID and make this just another seasonal flu. That's just amazing. The FDA hasn't approved it yet. That's why the FDA is not on my list of people to thank. They should be condemned to hell, but we have no pills that we can take. Apollo, thank you for the support. Really appreciate it. Sam C, thank you. Enric, really appreciate it. Thank you. It's a Moderna. It's the pill. It's the other big pharmaceutical company, those evil pharmaceutical companies. One of those big, it's not Pfizer. It is... Anyway, one of them, I forget, but they've now got a pill that you can take when you get COVID and it won't make you better immediately, but it will prevent you from dying. It will basically make it so that you don't die. I will talk about ivermectin tomorrow. I think you'll find it interesting and surprising and I'm not going to tell you why and I'm not going to tell you... I wonder, Freeman, if you get... I can't remember where you live, but if you live in the U.S. and you get COVID, don't take ivermectin. But I'll explain why. Now I finally found somebody who's done an analysis of basically every single ivermectin study and I now have something... He has something. I'm just conveying this because it seems cool to me. Something really cool to say about ivermectin. Mooc, thank you. Mooc is the drug. So Mooc and Pfizer are the two companies that now have a pill that basically, if you take it early enough, reduces the risk of dying from COVID to almost zero. It's pretty low right now, but it reduces it even more. Even if you have comorbidities, even if you're over 80, it reduces way down. So it is pretty amazing. Yeah, I get the whole cocktail thing. I'll talk about cocktails. I'll talk about ivermectin as part of a cocktail. You'll find out tomorrow. I'm tempted to tell you today, but I'll tell you tomorrow, 8 p.m., what I think about... Again, based on this one guy who's really looked into all this that makes complete sense to me, and he's done the stats, he's done the analysis, he's done the studies. I'll also tell you of the cocktail that they took, what I think actually worked. Assuming they took this thing, there's very little in this that actually, there's probably one thing that actually works in these cocktails, but we'll actually look at the stats rather than just speculating. But somebody's done the work. Somebody I've talked about before on this show has actually done the work, done the analysis, and it looks like it's completely... I mean, it looks kosher to me to the extent that I know about stats and from what he's done. Yeah, I mean, anyway, I don't want to talk about this, but there's a lot to say about this idea of everybody has an opinion about cures for COVID. I think that tells us something about the culture, too, that we all have these strong opinions about it. But we'll talk about all that tomorrow. All right, let's do some super chat questions here, and Michael stepped up with like a 50-buck contribution. Michael, you have done... I need to thank Michael in particular, Michael Sanders, because Michael asks super chat questions nearly every single show. He invests significant amounts of money in the super chat questions. He's probably one of my largest financial supporters of the show. Sometimes I get frustrated with his questions, but that's okay. But most of the questions are really, really good. And on a monthly basis, he's definitely one of the most substantial... And he asks a lot of questions because he has a lot of interest, and he's curious about a lot of things, which is great. But Michael has been, again, one of the strongest supporters of the show over the last year or so, and all through the super chat, all through asking questions, all in a productive way, and it's really, really great to see. So thank you, Michael. I really, really appreciate that. All right, so the $50 question he asked was, I watched your second Mackie debate. He is fundamentally dishonest and superficial. Mackie is apologetic about profits and self-interest. He thinks it's a necessary evil, and at a higher purpose, is about sacrifice and altruism and collectivism. I wouldn't say that he's dishonest, although I see why you say that. Mackie is, I think, superficial and confused. I think he's very confused. And his confusion basically is between. He's deeply held altruistic convictions. He's deeply held beliefs and a higher purpose and all that, that I think he's had since he was young, and that he just won't challenge. And on the other hand, his success as a businessman, the fact that profits are important to him, the fact that he's an employee of investors and he knows that, and that he has to maximize shoulder-worth because that's his job. You can see this is several libertarian on the one hand, and yet he has these altruistic, somewhat collectivistic premises that he is struggling to get rid of. And I don't think he's able to. He hasn't been able to. He's very confused. And yes, I do think superficial because of that, because he can't go deeper. He won't go deeper. He can't afford to go deeper. So he's very misguided. Okay, a few more Michael questions. Have people in finance made anti-semitic remarks around you when they didn't know you were in the tribe? No, not in finance. No. Okay, Jeffrey, the first question of mine you answered was about the role of Eddie Willers. Your explanation of the importance of recognizing great people has struck with me since. Very impactful. Thank you. Oh, that's great. Thank you, Jeffrey. Yes, I mean Eddie Willers is, I think, is a really, really important character. And standing Eddie Willers is really, really important. The understanding, I was shrugged and it's not an accident that the novel starts with Eddie and he kind of runs through the whole story with some exceptions. But he carries the theme in some ways. And to a large extent, it is the extent to which we, even the best among us, depend on the geniuses, depend on the most productive, that our lives as good as we can be, as productive as we can be, as creative as we can be without the, you know, in the world of business, in the world of technology, without the Steve Jobs and the Bill Gates and the two scientists behind BioNTech and the venture capitalists, it would be impossible for us to live the kind of life that we live today. And therefore all of us should have a deep, deep appreciation for the role of the genius, the role of the productive genius in the world in which we live. And Eddie Willers, I think, exemplifies that and his fate at the end is a consequence of the fact that in a world that crumbles, he can't fix it. He can't invent a motor. He can't find a valley. He can't fix the engine of the train that's stuck. He is dependent on the geniuses to stay alive, to thrive, to be successful. And that's why in Thanksgiving, make a list of the products, the companies, even if you don't know the names of the people behind these things that are changing your life, that have changed your life, that you are thankful to. And in an era where we love to hate businessmen, we love to hate big tech and big pharma and big business generally, it's a good time to stop and think of how much value you get from those big companies and how much you get from the Jeff Bezosis of the world. Right? And how much benefit you get from the existence of Amazon, right? I am daily thankful to Amazon, particularly on Black Friday. Amazon makes it possible for me to get great deals without having to go and deal with the just life-sucking experience of going to a mall on Black Friday, which I will never do. And yet I can still go shopping, still get great deals, and I can still survive through COVID, through lockdowns, through the government imposing their lockdowns on me because of Amazon. All right, Jordan Miller says, can you clarify the concept humble, humility, pride, arrogance, is humility a virtue or vice? An objectivism of humility is a vice. If you understand humility as not just, not being objective about your own abilities. I don't really understand quantum mechanics. I don't really understand, not really, I don't understand. Einstein's theory of relativity. I've tried, don't get it. That's not humility. That's just an objective assessment of my knowledge. Right? But if I said, with all my studies of all the years of objectivism, I still don't understand any of it. I don't get it. You know, I'm just struggling. Just like you, all of you guys, I'm just struggling to understand. No, I know objectivism better than most. Humility is putting yourself down. It's the rejection of your own knowledge, the rejection of your own virtue, the rejection of your own ability. And objectivism rejects that through and through. Pride is, pride, remember, pride is a virtue, which is an action. Pride is the commitment to excellence. The commitment to being good. The commitment to being great. And if you will, humility, if the humility is the opposite of pride, then humility is a commitment to being mediocre, a commitment to lack of knowledge, lack of ability, lack of everything, lack of moral perfection. Being proud means I am striving to be the best that I can be. That's what pride is. The striving for perfection, the striving for morality, the striving for being good, for living with that capital L. Arrogance, again, is in the negative sense, and you know, when we talk about it negatively, it's prescribing to yourself virtues you don't have. Over-emphasizing good qualities that you might not have. So it's not about pride. Pride is about striving and having a realistic assessment of your own ability and recognizing your goodness and patting yourself in the back for the good that you do. Arrogance, well, I guess there's arrogance and boastful. I'd have to think about all the different variations and all the different differences, but the fundamental is the difference between humility and pride and their opposites, and one is good and one is evil. One is a vice. Okay, Michael, it amazes me how many barely-saint people that are out there who are able to get by in this world. I grew up around a lot of them. Yeah, I mean, and the reason they can get by in this world is because we have created an amazing world in which even the weak can get by. I mean, that's what people don't understand. People don't understand the technology and capitalism and big tech and big farming and just, you know, real estate developers and all that great businessmen. They improve the lives of the simple people who are simple more than anybody else's lives. The simpler you are, the more you depend on the genius of others. So that's why they do so well. All right, I think we're probably having some internet problems because of the weather over here. We suddenly got a little bit of a storm rolling in. So I don't know what you can hear and what you can see. Let me know if you guys are having problems hearing the show. But it is, yeah, it's pouring rain outside. It's like a tropical storm has just arrived. All right, let's see. Michael has one more question. In an objectivist world, how would you sue someone in another country, say someone hit your car, then drove over the Canadian border? Well, I mean, you would either have countries or countries would have some kind of treaties that dealt with crimes that happened across. And you could potentially sue in Canada. Canada has a legal system. So there would be arrangements. There would be arrangements between countries that would deal with these kind of issues. And if they weren't, then you'd have to really be careful and you might not be able to sue and you might be in trouble. All right, Lola God says again about the PhD, is spending six years barely earning any money worth it to get a PhD, though? Well, again, it depends. It was for me. I mean, less than 15 a year, had a family. But it was for me because it gave me a visa into the United States. It was for me because I enjoyed doing it. It was for me because it set me in a career that ultimately I switched, but I enjoyed. It was for me because I enjoyed being in school. I mean, money is one factor, but not necessarily the important factor and not the dominating factor. If you want to move to Canada, this is a great way to move to Canada, assuming you don't already have a visa in Canada, how much has that worked? Is it worth the last income for six years? It might be. If you want to be a professor, then yeah, of course it's worth it. So I can't tell you if it's worth it for you. That's completely your call. But what I can tell you is it was worth it for me and it can be worth it for you if your values are aligned that way. All right, I think that's it for the Super Chat so far, at least for now. You can still ask a Super Chat question. We're at, I don't know, we're at, what, 680 bucks. You can get us to 1,000 pretty easily here and that would be fantastic. But we've done well today. $680 is good. Michael asked, were the Nazis motivated by envy or did they just foster envy in the population in order to take power? They were motivated by nihilism. They were motivated by hatred. They were motivated by despising reality and they were motivated by power lust. And envy is an aspect of that, but not the only thing. There's no question that envy is part of that, right? Envy is part of that, but it's not everything. It's nihilism is often driven by envy. All right, Captain says we're $669. I don't know why I got 680, but anyway, 670. All right, have a great Thanksgiving. I am going out, we have Thanksgiving here in Puerto Rico at our favorite restaurant. They make the best turkey I've ever had and the food is going to be amazing. It's going to be spectacular. We're going to be nine of us. I've got some friends visiting. I've also got my business partner here and his wife and his little kid and they've got friends. So they're going to be nine of us at dinner tonight. We're going to go to this restaurant in Old San Juan that we really, really love and it is a lot of fun and where we know the chef and it's just going to be fantastic. It's going to be a party. We're going to have a lot of fun. I hope you guys have a great Thanksgiving. Do me a favor. Do me a favor. Use this Thanksgiving to say thank you. Don't argue with people about politics or about anything. It's not the time. It's not the place. Have fun. Drink some wine. Have a cocktail. Pat people in the back. Give them a hug. Give them a kiss. Enjoy the people in your life. If there's somebody there who you don't like, ignore them. Don't spend Thanksgiving yelling and arguing and beating and getting excited and getting negative and talking about all the shit in the world. Not worth it. Have fun. Life is to be lived. Having fun is a crucial part of that. And you just sometimes have to take a night off. Thank you, theme master. Really appreciate it. You sometimes have to take a night off from all the BS, from all the nonsense, from all the crap that's out there. You have to take a night off and the people you don't like, the people you love to hate, the people you argue with, the people you like, just relax. Relax. Stop lying. Don't think about all the challenges that you have. Just enjoy yourself. And use it as an opportunity, as we said, to be thankful. Thankful to be alive. Thankful for being healthy, for having a mind, for all the wonderful people that exist in the world out there, that exist in your life. And, yeah, huh. And, yeah, just, anyway, again, thank you guys for being here with me the whole year, for now a few years now. Thank you guys for supporting the show, whether you do it by super chat. Thank you Michael again. Thank you all for supporting the show in all the variety of ways that you do by sharing, by just giving a thumbs up, by just thanking me once in a while, by sending money, by doing it monthly, by however you do it. Thanks all of you. You make it worthwhile. Thank you, Jennifer, for always being there and for inviting me to Michigan. And we will continue. Tomorrow, we'll get into court cases, we'll get into ivermectin, we'll get into COVID, we'll get into all the fun stuff that so many of you enjoy talking about. But for today, forget about all that, just go out there and enjoy yourself and say thank you lots and lots and lots of times. Bye everybody. I'll see you tomorrow.