 So I'm driving in this morning to the hotel. I have a home not too far from here and as I often do I'm listening to NPR and I'm thinking I have to give a talk on optimism Three stories just from home to here three stories the first See United States under Trump is shooting itself in the foot with tariffs on Canada So the Canadians are brilliant. They've decided to shoot themselves in the knee my imposing tariffs in the US and Like and people love this. They think this is cool and great That's story number one Story number two There is a homeless crisis in LA their massive numbers of homeless and nobody can understand why No, listen to this right Why are there so many homeless people in LA because the city of LA is Constantly building homes for the homeless. So they're taking them for the street and putting in the home And then they turn around and there are more people in the street They never heard about this thing and they'd offer something for free. Everybody's gonna come I mean people are abandoning their rent to become homeless because they're gonna get a free home afterwards. I Mean the insanity of the world we live in But the third story was the best It turns out and this is all true. I think this is what I heard on the radio coming into it The city of Seattle Yeah, that's enough right the city of Seattle and many other places around the country are in the process of banning plastic straws Because the world is dying from too many plastic straws We don't know where to put all the plastic straws When they recycle plastic it turns out the straws fall in between the machines in the gaps and their straws everywhere So that they think you're paper straws. But what happens when you put paper into water? Try that sometime or organic straws and And it you know and they the whole show is with the straight face Right, I'm laughing in the car, but they were in a straight face So look it's easy to be pessimistic it's easy to see the world as a dark place and It's easy to believe that the future is even bleaker than the present if you listen to the news There's almost nothing encouraging. There's almost nothing positive If you look at our universities, and I'm not gonna go through the whole thing because you know all the negative stuff So I'm gonna focus on the positive, but just on a highlight, right? What are they teaching at the universities today? The garbage the postmodernism the nonsense that has been taught in the humanities is just unimaginable You've got a T for you know stopping speakers from speaking all over the US and now we were exporting it to Europe we've got People advocating for the worst stupidest ideas ever young people embracing socialism believing socialism is the future We've got professors teaching them that that's a little too moderate. They shouldn't be so idealistic Nealism is the real thing of the future If you look at the field of ideas it is a disaster and if you look at the field of politics It's awful. There's just nobody and I know some of your Trump fans, but You're gonna have to forgive me It's a disaster of Unimaginable proportion in my view. It's I can't imagine a worse combination than Obama and then Trump And if you look around the world, you know, you've got Hungary and Poland Descending into what looks like authoritarianism you got Putin and Russia and in China You've got this guy who's now going to be dictator for his whole life and it just looks like a mess out there And it's a disaster and it is all of that is true all of it all of it is true So how can we be optimistic and what does even mean to be optimistic well I take optimism in the context that we talk about is to have a positive view of the future that the future is going to be better The things are going to be good in our own lives. We'll talk about that and in the world generally So how can you do that? How can you have a positive attitude given everything that we read everything that we look everything that we observe out there? Well, I think we're not looking. I think we're not actually observing. I Think we're way too focused on politics and way too focused on what the news chooses to tell us We're not introspecting and we know very little history very little history Because man, this is the best time in human history to be alive It's I mean in every by every measure every material measure certainly of human flourishing of The potential of what we could do as human beings. There has never been a better time to be alive We're living longer and healthier lives than ever before I mean We've got I don't know 150 Students here. I mean your life expectancy probably is a hundred Maybe much more if the kind of breakthroughs that people expecting exist are going to are going to actually happen We all our life expectancy everybody in this room is way above 80 and that's stunning It was 20 years less not that long ago certainly not if you look at history 100,000 years 10,000 years 5,000 years Think about how wealthy we are. I mean you've all seen the graphs. I assume right 300 years ago. We were all living on two dollars a day or less two dollars in today's dollars Think about what it looks like to live on two dollars a day today It's hundreds of times more than that if you live in the West and indeed the number of people living on two dollars a day or less today Is that the lowest point in human history? Because it's only gone down 30 years ago. It was about 30% of humanity was living in two dollars a day or less Today it's under 9% and within a couple of decades if certain trends continue it'll be zero Extreme poverty the way we all live not that long ago from a historical perspective is being eradicated It's being eliminated. It's gone More people today on the planet are being educated. They can read. I Mean that's amazing We are brought in to the world to trade with Billions of new minds Think what that can do for the future Billions of people now have access to the internet have access to computer power have access to information to knowledge to history to science To math that didn't have it before billions Now think of what we've done just 300 million or 400 million just with the number of geniuses We can produce but think now on billions and what they could produce and what they can create what they can make and we're all interconnected So we can trade at a far more efficient far more productive the transaction costs have gone down to almost zero particularly in intellectual pursuits and innovation and technology What is possible is truly amazing and yes They're not they don't have the right philosophy. We'll talk about that and yes, they're not a hundred percent free neither are we But they're free enough to think they're free enough to sit at a computer and learn Think about how many people today know math and science around the world. I Mean our educational system has gone like that, but the rest of the world Maybe it's not a great educational system, but they have one They never used to be an educational system in much of the world kids didn't get educated in China, right? Certainly not with anything valuable and so very recently Think about India think about beginning even in Africa think about what the access to mobile technology and what the access to the internet Has the potential to do to these continents with billions of people Who contributed who contributed to their own lives nothing because they were just subsistence farmers and contributed to us in terms of trade Nothing because they weren't part of a global economy One of the things that really pisses me off more than anything and this is but wait what maybe why I have such a visceral response to Trump is The globalization is one of the most amazing stunning beautiful Phenomenos that I've ever seen The humanity has ever experienced the ability to trade across continents the ability to benefit from the genie of somebody on the other side of The world or the ability to trade to benefit from some person who's willing to just assemble something So I don't have to assemble it and my children don't have to assemble it The ability to benefit from the benefits of trade that we all learned from I ran the win-win relationships But now on a global scale with billions of people instead of just millions of people It's something that has to be celebrated cheered on applauded and instead It's turned into this negative. It's turned into this dark. It's turned into this You know somehow it's you against them when it's not it's trade. It's win-win So globalization has changed the world for the better universally People are better off. We're better off Standard living of Americans has gone up dramatically because of trade with China Dramatically if you look at the numbers Particularly if you're middle-class and lower middle-class and poor your lifestyle standard of living has gone up because we trade with the world but think about the power of This connected world think about the power of the minds think about the number of geniuses born When you're now accessing eight billion people rather than just a billion it's eight times more And we know the power of genius We know the power of productive genius and what it can do to our own lives How can we not be positive about the future when we see so many people engaged in it? I mean even at this Ocon. I don't know Something like 30% of all attendees now are foreigners never used to be We've got a big contingency from Argentina. We've got a big contingency like last time I think for Poland from vaster ways and then I See the audience to my show is global the phenomena is not global and that couldn't happen without this amazing technology And of course think about technology right My famous iPhone I'm still still working on getting there the X I Mean I've always said this is more powerful than the computer to send man to the moon I read that somewhere and I that's true. No question But what somebody told me a few weeks ago is that then you know sending a man to moon that was 68 That's a long time ago and you guys weren't even born and I was a kid and you know So that that's hard to connect to but for me to connect It was somebody said told me a few a few weeks ago that this is more powerful than a cray Super computer was in the 1980s. I remember cray supercomputers They filled rooms and it was like whoa a cray. I have one in my pocket You have one in my pocket pretty much everybody has one in their pocket. I mean that is stunning It's amazing And think about what you get here and you know many of you've heard me say this You're not only do you get all the knowledge of the ages? You know the poems of the ages the stories of the ages you get all the music of the ages You can look up anything on this thing spiritual values material values. It's it's right here You can access it for what how much does it cost you? Nothing how do we measure that increase in standard of living that getting something for free has We can't economists don't know what to do with free stuff. We don't know what to do We can't measure it. We don't know how to add it up We can't right We can we can deal with money and assets that are priced in terms of money, but free stuff. We don't know what to do with If you look around You know in spite of all the bad stuff that's happening People seem to be going about their business. They're working hard. They're producing values. They're creating stuff You know cross now granted. We're in Newport Beach So one of the nicer and wealthier places in the world, but you go across into that mall across the street and Wow, it's amazing. It's beautiful. It's stunning and the places like that all over the country now not to say again Everybody's life is good There no victims of the state. They are the huge victims of the philosophical state in which we live But let's get a perspective in terms of where we are while we are Right 2008 I remember sitting at Fox business with Peter Schiff next to me Talking about the financial crisis and Peter was basically saying I love Peter, but he was basically saying This is hyperinflation. We are all doomed. Gold is going to 10,000 and this is the end of civilization as we know it We should all move to China Because we've decoupled somehow And yeah, it was bad. It was bad But I don't think a lot of you even remember it It's gone. We're back to work Somehow we overcome these challenges Somehow capitalism whatever's left of capitalism whatever freedom we have we adjust we adapt and even these tariffs as bad as they are And they're they're just stupid is what what really bugs me is They're adapting right? What's what's what's Holly Davidson gonna do they need to sell motorcycles in Europe They can't sell it from here because there's a 20% chance. So what they're gonna do? They ship production to Thailand. They're still gonna make the motorcycles. They're still gonna import them to Europe. Yeah, they'll be more expensive It's less efficient. It's less productive. It's not as good, but we will survive even Donald Trump Just like we survived Obama We will survive So I think all these things and I could go on and on and on and you you do it in your own head Think about all the wonderful things but take an historical perspective Think about YouTube Didn't exist 12 years ago Google didn't exist 20 years ago Amazon who buys on Amazon? I don't need to ask because I know every single one of you buy something else on Amazon. I Mean wow It makes my life so much better. It makes every one of your life so much better It's amazing the kind of life that we get to live in this world How much it cost you to come to the conference? relative to 20 years ago very little so life is Getting better all the time Life on this planet in particular if you take a global idea say globalist if you take a global perspective Life on this planet is getting amazing as I said literacy health wealth every parameter of Individual flourishing is better on a planetary level and I know we're all Americans or most of us are Americans, but hey again we've got trading partners over there and There I say it if somebody else somewhere else becomes better. We could even move That should be an option for every individual. So things are good Things are going well Why Gotta ask ourselves why because Ideas drive history. We know that Philosophy drives the world that is the objective theory of history and it's true And yet the ideas in our culture the ideas taught at any universities The ideas held by our philosophers by historians by our intellectuals are rotten to the core For the most part So how is it the things are good and seem to be getting better And I believe are getting better and will get better in spite of the fact That all these ideas which we believe drive history are so bad It's because I think we're ignoring the most important ideas that Actually are driving our culture I Think we're ignoring what implicitly is actually driving human behavior today an implicit philosophy Very few people have an ex-plicit philosophy. I want to give you an example so you go to school and You're taught all this leftist garbage in school It's just standard every school every university in the country teaches the same nonsense Socialism you might even rally around some socialist flag while you're at university and then you know conservatives say Then you go into the workplace and you get a paycheck and you realize how much taxes you're not paying and you flip But I don't think that's right. I don't think it's the taxes that makes you flip When you go to work If you ever had a boss that said to you look Reality isn't really real if you want to have some fictitious customers That's okay, and we can create we can invent a product and it doesn't we don't have to actually make it and you know Money's evil. I mean if there's a boss like that, how long would they survive in business? They'd be out very quickly if they actually not just said it but lived it. You can't live it You can't actually survive the really bad philosophy that is being taught So the savior to a large extent particularly in America, but I think more and more globally the savior of These kids who get all this rotten education is that they get a job in business Where the boss says I don't care what you learned at school That's a customer. That's a product and we make money here and you learn They learn That that's the way the world is and they learn implicitly that it's kind of fun So yeah, you have tell was telling me about all these leftist programmers in Silicon Valley Yeah, they can be leftist over lunch But you can't program if you're if you're postmodernist It's no it doesn't mean anything Right when it comes to programming you better be reality focused when it comes to programming you better use your reason And when it comes to your paycheck, you're suddenly an individualist The implicit philosophy and I think this is a powerful powerful force The implicit philosophy embedded in the very nature of business is a powerful force on young people coming into that world The BS the complete garbage is out now it doesn't save them as individuals Because they will still feel guilty for making the money They will still have the altruism bugging them and hounding them and preventing them from truly benefiting of a truly being happy and Completely embracing the world in which they live and completely understanding What it is that you're trying to do that will always be a handicap. They can't do it But on the other hand, they're not going to be as wacky as They professors would like them to be They're gonna grow up They're gonna produce they're gonna make stuff and build stuff and you know less or less will benefit from that It's just an ideal and I'm not trying to portray the world that we live in as ideal I think the biggest loss that we have in the world we live in today the two really One is what the world could be. Oh my god I know how many of you have the imagination to imagine what a laissez-fait capitalist world just from a material perspective would be like Flying cars is nothing, right? It would be astounding the amount of wealth we could actually accumulate what the technology could actually look like, right? That's one and the second worse. I think is What it does to the soul of individuals The fact that they yes, they produce they create they build they make they do all the stuff But they don't fully enjoy it. They don't fully make it part of them. It doesn't become a Source for their happiness and that's tragic That's tragic. So I think we underestimate The wall of enlightenment ideas in the world in which we live The enlightenment which I think of in a simplistic simple way not simplistic But simple way has really two ideas that come out of the enlightenment They read the individualism the idea of the sanctity of the individual your life is yours Doesn't belong to tribe the king and it's yours and The idea of the efficacy of reason it's really reason first individualism next but the efficacy of reason and That transmitted primarily through the idea of science and the scientific method But those two ideas are out there in the culture not explicit not integrated, but they're there People still love science and respect science so much so that the environmentalists who are anti science to the core Have to use scientists in order to try to you know Convince us Convince the public that they are somehow right They can't avoid it. They can't just talk philosophy They can't just talk about how evil human beings on how nasty they are they have to bring science into the picture We all respect science We think it's important and in that sense we all respect reason at least again to the extent that we do and Think about how many again think about this global world Think about how many people today study in school Math and science put aside all the other stuff which is maybe a lot of garbage there But just math and science how many people 300 years ago studied math and science Five like on the whole planet You know 500 5000 Now you've got billions of people who went to school and gained a certain respect They said in way of thinking about the world through math and science Which allows for the kind of technological revolution that you experience the kind of technological advancement that is going on in the world today Billions of people now know these subjects these are subjects that come out of the enlightenment There is no math and science for everybody before that it that's something only the Platonic philosopher kings did But in the enlightenment brought it down to everybody and now the whole world is embraced this enlightenment value Without even knowing it's an enlightenment value without knowing where it came from So there is a respect for reason people still you know when you talk to them they're looking for evidence What's the facts a legal system still is oriented towards facts for the most part, right? And that again is spreading across the world We're seeing more and more and more orientation towards reality away from kind of mysticism away from the witch doctors and more about evidence And you're seeing that more so maybe in other countries than in the United States But you're seeing it as a global phenomena, and it's wow and then the second part of this is individualism, and I find this Interesting so I travel all over the world as you know, and I speak to a lot of audiences around the world, and I can go anywhere a town in China You know in Eastern Europe and my guess is this would be true in Africa, although I have not tried it You ask an audience in any one of these places Who does your life? belong to Everybody says me. I mean they say it as if it's obvious. What do you mean? Who does my life belong to it belongs to me? Now if you'd asked that question 35 years ago in China, that would have not been the response. I Suddenly 20 years ago in Eastern Europe that would have not been the response Suddenly again without knowing it without holding the idea of individualism and with all its implications of what it means Philosophically and what it means for the world There are all these people at least at some level See their value as an individual my life does not belong to the party My life does not belong to the state my life does not belong to the Proletarian or to the race or to any of these things my life belongs to me and Again all these people are waking up billions of people all over the world to this idea that their life is theirs to live And that's wow that is that is powerful And Americans still believe their life is theirs to live and yes, they're not consistent. They're horribly inconsistent about it But on a day-to-day basis the way they live their life They're using reason and rationality and their work and they care about what happens to them and their family and their kids And that's the center of focus and the altruism which is Altruism there's nothing worse than that the way altruism affects the human soul the altruism prevents them from being proud of that Prevents them from benefiting from that But they do it and they benefit from it Indirectly right materially in other ways and we all benefit from that fact that they're civilized people out there You know one of the trends I forgot to say forgot to tell you about his violence is The lowest level of violence in all of human history today There are fewer crimes there's fewer if you're wars right We obsess about the one or two wars that exist out there But there's never been a more peaceful time never been a more peaceful time in all of human history and I meant said why right? Why is there a few wars because? When people value their own life when people use their mind You know they don't go out and jump on grenades and start wars for the sake of killing each other They want to trade again one of the reasons I'm so offended by tariffs and their language of anti-trade is the trade is one of the great pacifying forces in the world When it's driven by self-interest and win-win transactions So I think the enlightenment is far more of a dominant intellectual force in the world today implicitly Then maybe I thought in the past and maybe others have thought in the past it is there it is In people's day-to-day life just assumed implicitly Even those who are religious Don't take their religion that seriously now we're near as seriously as they did 500 years ago Yeah, they're religious on Sunday. They go to church and some are more religious than that But mostly it's that but on a day-to-day basis. They're pretty egoistic. They care about their paycheck And they're pretty rational again. They can even program and I think to a large extent our job Our job is to make those ideas explicit a Job on Kagate has said many times our job is to save the enlightenment and To finish complete its mission and that's what I ran does She gives us the tool to save the enlightenment. She completes the venture that lock and Voltaire and many others in the French and Scottish enlightenment They set us on a path and I ran completes that path She provides us with the philosophical foundations for individualism and for efficacy of reason and Reason as man's basic means of survival I ran completes that and our job is to bring that to the forefront to make this implicit philosophy explicit in people's minds now You know, I've drawn kind of a global picture and again, I don't want to be Polly Anish There are plenty of people suffering. There are plenty of people whose dreams are shattered because of this regulation or that regulation You know put aside accidents, but of real problems real things that are happening out there But I think at the end of the day this question of optimism which I take as a positive view of the future a Positive view of what's possible in the future. I Think goes down to what you and I and each one of us does with our own lives and how we view our own future Can my life be better in the future? Can I live a better life in the future? And at the end of the day, it is that that you have control over one of the reasons I tell people Stop listening to so much news Please stop Because you have no control over it anyway. I mean I'm out there speaking constantly about this stuff and I have no control over it So yes, you can tweet and you can Facebook and you can do all this stuff But you don't have any control over you're not gonna change it in dramatic ways soon and to obsess about it It is just silly and The fears and the threats that everybody is trying to convince you that exists are not real Muslims are not gonna take over the world it ain't happening Because their philosophy is so stupid That yes once in a while they can get their act together and do a 9-11, but for the most part, they're just not competent enough To take us out. It's not gonna happen Immigrants are not gonna sweep into this country and drive crime rates into the floof Crime is down and with illegal immigration crime is even lower than it was before the big push in illegal immigration It's crime is not an issue in the United States not a issue in terms of yeah There's more crime that they should be but it's not something you should be afraid of I Mean, what are we afraid of? We listen to too much of the negative and when you hear a constant flow of all the bad news Plastic straws and stuff like that You know and it seems like we as human beings like Armageddon stories We like end of the world stories. It excites us. It gets us going, right? Whether it's climate change gonna end the world tomorrow or whether it's way to K or whether it's the thousand other You know, there's a big resurrection now of overpopulation. You know pull early who's back. I Mean discredited as it's been it's not because we constantly and it's easy to get sucked into those things Yes, we dismiss some of them and we engage in others What you should really be focused on is On your own life on what you can do to control your future The robots for example are indeed coming and they're after your jobs No, it's true So do something about it Retrain think about how you can Focus on something that we're what cannot do Take control over your own life Stand up to whatever challenges the future has and make your life the best that it can be By using your reason by using most importantly Iron rands virtues the ethics of objectivism the ethics of objectivism prepares you for a future Pairs you to be successful. It is the ethics of success. It is the morality of achievement So prepare yourself. Yeah, there's gonna be lots of bad stuff happening Tariffs might take away your job or robots or immigrants or whatever Have a plan Wow, what a concept Think about it. Make sure that what you're studying is something that's sustainable It's something that won't be taken away. If it is be prepared to be flexible. This is not science fiction This is how human beings at least for the last 250 years have lived this constant change and you need to adapt to that change So take your life seriously set ambitious goals go for it And take the pride that objectivism teaches us take your morality seriously be ambitious morally seek perfection Yeah, perfection Not a lot to talk about that in the world today Do the best that you can do live the best life that you can live and acknowledge that So that you benefit the rest of the world might not benefit from their achievements there You should be benefiting from it. You should be happy. You should reward yourself For the achievements that you have earned because you understand where those achievements come from and why you have earned them And why your life is the standard not somebody else's yours So you are unencumbered by altruism. I mean that's an exaggeration because altruism is very difficult to get rid of But if there's anything that you should focus on trying to read your soul of trying to read your mind of trying to rid Every fiber in your body of it is altruism Your life does not belong to anybody else, but you your happiness is your moral ideal Sacrifice is self sacrifice placing the world being of others above yourself Is evil it's wrong get rid of it live for you. I mean fully understand what that means Don't be a jerk, right? And be happy as a consequence And life can get rough And when life gets rough and and again the news and everything Think about heroes You know, I think Andy is going to be talking about heroes later in the week, but think about heroes And How inspiring they can be and think big in terms of here. I mean you could start with with Howard rock and john galt Right and the challenges in the fountain head that rock faces And think about what that would mean if he was down in the world and down on life and down on everything Right, what would the quarry look like? What do you've turned down the building? You know the the bank building what what would we have done? And the book would be a completely different book. It would be it would be not iron rant Because iron rant is inherently about you have control over your future and you could make it great And you should be optimistic about that. You should be confident in your future Or even john galt who you think is a pessimist, right? The world's gone to hell. No, he's got a solution He's gonna start a gold sculpture. He's gonna change the world He doesn't just sit back and complain. He acts. He's got a plan. He does something to make his life and the people he loves life better That should inspire So literary heroes can be great inspirations, but more than that It's important for us to hold in historical context and look for for heroes in the real world You know when you see and tea for shut down a talk Think about Galileo and Newton Having to confront religious authority Not a bunch of kids who don't have a clue with their lives just thugs Who I mean religious authority that could have them killed Religious authority. They didn't want to have anything to do with them And yet they persevered and brought us the scientific revolution Or think of Voltaire and Locke Who brought us the ideas of the enlightenment but had to escape Because they were afraid for their lives Because of their ideas So a bunch of You know a bunch of people are writing outside books. I mean, it's bad But again the perspective here wasn't a bunch of kids. He was the authorities Here it was the king. It was the people in power after you We're not there yet in america We can still speak we can still hold ocon. So let's put it all in perspective, right? Or think about JD Rockefeller bringing light to the world and cheap energy to the world The kid who had nothing and started from nothing and built Something amazing And changed the world in profound ways And had to fight everybody on the way his competitors But more importantly the mud rockers and the politicians and everybody who wants to destroy his business And yet he succeeded and he persevered And you might say well that was in the 19th century things were free then then okay think about steve jobs Right who in this century or last century actually You know got fired from the company. He started that revolutionized computing fired from his own company And then started some Strange computer company. I don't know if you ever saw a next computer Pretty cool, but strange And pixar just a little thing Made some of the best movies of the last 30 years And then came back to apple I mean and changed the world again Changed the world again I mean he believed in himself he believed in his power he believed In the power of his vision and he made it a reality Or think about Jeff Bezos, right? Now I remember I remember The late 90s 90s. I don't know how many of you remember it was this company Selling books online I was shorting the stock all day long I mean give me a break books online. You're gonna make money selling books online And look what we are today I mean he's changed our lives He's the richest man in the world and think about what he wants to do with this money I mean this is so inspiring to me. He's not gonna give it away like Steve job like bill gates You know what he's gonna do with his money He's gonna go to Mars I mean you laugh, but he's serious. He is serious And think about that as a positive Who 20 years ago among us would think that the privatization of space was something real that could happen Yeah, it was a dream It was something maybe one day when we took over the world would happen, but it's happening Not completely not fully But here's jeppie's just putting his own capital competing with others to See who gets the Mars first? I mean that's cool That is just cool so Wow And then just a few years ago Some kid. I think at one of these conferences said I want to build a supersonic jet And make it commercial Right and it was an ocon That's like, yeah, right. You're gonna build a supersonic jet. I mean, I'm sure I don't remember what I thought, but I'm sure that's what I thought And he's doing it Blake shawls is building this supersonic jet. It's called boom. Look it up online And it's gonna be commercial and I'm gonna fly to Asia like that and to europe like that It's gonna benefit my life directly He didn't say all the regulators and the and the philosophy departments and this he went out and did it He built it. He created it. Wow Those are heroes And those are role models And those are people that should inspire every you every single day and every single moment Because in spite of all the bullshit in spite of all the crap instead of all the Ugliness and the bad stuff that happens out there The world is yours Go grab it Thank you Q&A Yeah, on what you said about math Reminds me of uh, what I said about what math math. Yeah reminds me of I saw the Incredibles last night and uh Mr. Incredible was struggling to help his son with his new math homework And this the movie took place in 1963 And uh, would you say that um New math is a kind of thing that has been phased out and that we're back on track in terms of I mean, yes, I think that's the the worst parts of that It just it's so obviously doesn't work that they get scrapped But is what's replaced in any good? You know, I'm not an expert in education asked some of the people in education here But my guess is no we're still not on the right track We've just discarded some of the real garbage and the really bad stuff When it's practical, right? So there's still whole language out there There's still some new math out there, but I'll tell you I I went to school in Brookline, Massachusetts In 1974 At what was considered that's time the best school in the in one of the best schools in the united states Dukakis's kids went to school with me. Those of you who remember who Dukakis was Uh, the school had no walls No desks We sat on the floor in bean bags, right? And uh, the teachers taught whatever they felt like teaching My my brother one year. They didn't feel like teaching math talking about math. So she taught them russian right instead and um I think for the most part that complete nuttiness in schools is gone Although i'm sure there are a few here and there, but that was like the big thing that was the best school That was where everything was heading and we learned nothing for a year. So I think You know again, I'm not I'm not trying to be pollyannish in the sense that everything's great No, there's a lot of work to do it particularly in education education sucks in america It's terrible Yeah, lee Yeah, um You talked talked about the implicit uh good ideas drive technology and science. That's obviously true But there is the other side which is Uh, I don't know what's implicit ideas, but leftist statism Is going the opposite direction and has been doing so for 200 years, you know, there's a little rest But actually trump has done a few good things. You have to admit a couple of things to reduce the The hesitant they're afraid You can clap you can clap. It's okay. I don't want to eat you but the general trend is still Leftist with all the technology and all the science Uh, we still have things like the FDA. That's why we don't have life extension Is the FDA and if if that keeps going all the technology and the science will not save us From 1984 and then anthem it seems to me. So what do you think about that? So I think we have a lot more. So part of my point is I think we have a lot more time I think you might see some of these innovations that we're talking about happen outside the united states because there are less regulations there Because I think the world is waking up and there are places that are less regulated than the united states So let's not be so america focused that we obsess just about what happens here Although that's justified up until now because most innovation happens here But I think that's going to change in in in our future I also think that Markets as I said before if you if you just looked At regulations of banking coming out of 1933 34 securities laws Any rational person would have looked at that and said there's never going to be any banking in the united states It's finished. There's going to be no innovation in finance. These laws are so horrific. They're so horrendous. And you know what? People found ways around them 90 percent of innovation in the financial industry is to get around regulations Now it's not as efficient. It's not as good. It's not a good use of the human mind But it's better than the alternative which is succumbing to the regulations and I suspect that Companies will find ways around these things and that there will be progress in spite of it We're splicing the human gene. I mean, you know more than this than I do But we're splicing the human You know genes I mean that's I don't know where that's going to take us but that's amazing and my senses that people are going to do stuff offline Without the FDA That is there's maybe going to revolutionize so I so Let me say this long term Yes, you have to make the implicit philosophy explicit. Otherwise it will die out I just think the long term is longer and we are more innovative and flexible and can get around the bullshit Then I thought in the past that I think most objectivists think I think and and this is the evidence the fact is You know and that we've always thought oh, it's another five years and then everything will collapse and the cliff is just in front of us And it doesn't look like it is now. Maybe you know, everything will happen tomorrow and I was all wrong But I don't think so. I don't see it Um And I don't think I ran saw it like that, right? I think she had a much she believed in America in 1980 Think about 1980. She did this interview where she said she she still believed in America And she thought the future was good and everything like that and think about what was going on in 1980 as compared to today, right? American hostages were being held in Tehran 50 of them and America was doing nothing to save them, right We had very high inflation and very high unemployment stagflation Crime rates were way higher than they are today Way high you couldn't walk in central park In daytime, you couldn't walk in central park in 1980 and they got worse over the next decade and then they declined dramatically since then So and yet I think I think in many respects the world was much worse in 1980 And yet she was still held the idea that good ideas will win out in this implicit philosophy that is embedded in in much of modern life Will survive long enough for those of us who want to make it explicit to win out Just let me add one one quick thing to this and you know, Stephen Pinker is a great advocate of what you're talking about But what he misses because he's a leftist Is he he's shown that violence is decreased over the centuries But not but what he hasn't shown about force The governmental force has not decreased and the leftists don't you know the leftists from the berkeley times don't make that Sure, uh, don't understand that violence and force are the same Probably don't understand that and the force is still governmental force is still on the increase and we need those explicit ideas To reverse that to reverse that no question But look first, let me say I strongly recommend steven pinker's latest book enlightenment now I I think everybody should read it. It's not all good. There are a lot of bad stuff in it But the good stuff is so good that you should read it. Everybody should read it I also think he's got deep philosophical problems beyond the leftist which are reflected in other books They come out in this book as well, but you're all gonna catch that Focusing on the good stuff There's a lot of good material in the book that'll make your life better But I would say that's true, but on the other hand I'd rather live in a society and this may be just me Where people are now murdering and raping and pillaging And there's regulation So I'd like both to go away But the the threats of my actual life Are being mugged and robbed or slaughtered in central park in In daylight, I I'd rather that go away And yes, I would like all of the force go away, but but I think that violence probably has to go first We have to live in a society in which We value human life so much that we're not willing to be explicitly violent and I think again implicitly That hopefully and we will help it through explicit philosophy transition into the idea. Okay. Well if that's wrong Then other forms of force are wrong as well That's my optimistic view of that Yeah, thank you for your talk Over the last several years. I've had opportunities to talk to numerous startup founders and business leaders And almost universally they believe they're doing really great work. They know that they're thriving in their life They know that their company might be doing well And then almost universally they believe some significant part of the world is getting worse always. Yeah And they may not even believe that they have to do something about it They might be approaching it from algorithm, but just in terms of their view of the world There's seems to be the significant difference between how they See the advancement of their own life and how the rest of the world is progressing Yes, I think that's that's generally true of of people out there, right? So we all think our life's pretty good You know people ask people do these surveys and they ask people What do you think about your health insurance? Oh, my health insurance is great. My health insurance What do you think about you know health insurance generally? Oh, it's awful The health insurance everybody else has is terrible. We need socialized Madison even though mine is fine So people have this perspective on our life, but they listen to the news And they read newspapers Right and they get the constant flood of no life sucks and it's terrible and it's awful and it's My neighborhood's safe, but their neighborhoods out there. They're incredibly violent because there's violence I hear it on the news every single day. It must be everywhere It's just not with me. So I think people have that Perspective because they first of all, there's no positive news being broadcast We don't hear about the positives the positives we know about our own lives because we experienced them But we can't generalize I guess people don't generalize they don't think So, yes, there's generally an optimism about your own life and a pessimism about the world that pervades particularly the startup community Is there anything about that that can be done to I mean is that an idea that people hold that needs to change or Is it just the well, they need to think and they need to be objective And they're not being objective. That is they're not assessing facts objectively The they're looking at it from a very narrow subjective. It's a subjectivist approach It's it's it's completely a subjective view of it. You know, there's probably a deeper answer, but that's The best I have right now. Yeah Yes, what do you think of The current theocratic control And theocratic prohibitions and medical research so that It is illegal in the united states to Do medical research without the approval Of so-called ethicists all of whom are religious figures It's a system created by leon cas Uh, who is an explicit opponent of life extension And now we have something that would have given the cardinals who imprisoned galileo A wet dream about power Because now the theocrats have total power over medical research In the united states and in most of the world Well, I mean, I think I think the the tragedy here is that this is something that both the left and the right agree on So the leon casters of the world who's from the right who was who was bush as a pointee to the biotech commission Uh, I forget it was in the uh in the 2000s and came out with a scathing report about how life extension was bad You know why life extension is bad You know bankrupt social security. No, but even worse than social security. Well, why is life extension bad? It's gonna cause massive numbers of divorce I mean you can live with a woman for 50 years But a hundred Give me a break. I'd live with you a hundred. Um But that was in the report. This is a scientific report about the evil of life extension And he's worried about divorce who the cares I want to live to be 200. You're worried about me getting divorced I can't think of anything more evil than that So, yes, adam. I I agree. I and I hope my hope is That while we are descending into this nuttiness insanity that they're going to be places in the world that won't do that They're they're they're people doing uh gene therapy studies elsewhere in the world that are not allowed to be done in the united states and I think you know So I'm a patriot. I love america I I love the idea of america. I love the founding. I I moved here because this was the place I wanted to live. I love everything about this country But you know what if if this country becomes nuts as it is it is becoming Then there are other places in the world to live now. I am on the border now, right? Because I live in Puerto Rico, which is a leg in and a leg out, right And there's a reason for that because it's crazy here And so I I'm optimistic in a sense that I think The the the the striving towards the betterment of life Will revive somewhere else even if it dies some to some extent here There will be somewhere else where they'll allow this research And it'll keep going and encourage those of you in the science to look for other places that have better regulatory regimes Where you can do this where you where you can do the kind of science that is going to extend human life because given the state of science There's no reason I think that we couldn't live Dramatically longer lives than what we again li would know more about this and adam would know a bit more about this But it strikes me from the little I know and from the people I've talked to that We could be living much much longer healthy lives than we do Today and what really is the barrier to that is the FDA And but I think those scientific breakthroughs are going to happen somewhere And we are going to at least the young people in this audience are going to benefit again The real tragedy. I mean again, I mentioned two tragedies of the world in which we live in today It's what could be we could already have those technologies if not for the FDA and not for the regulatory state and and and everything else We could already have it. We could already be living there And what it does the individual human beings the fact that they live with altruism, but It's it's yeah, it's it's the parallel universe It makes our job by the way much more difficult to convince people that there that there could be a parallel universe in which we're all Living much better happier more prosperous lives than we do It's hard enough to show them Venezuela Right a real concrete example of the evil of socialism never mind. Oh, but there's this Potential You have to have an imagination to see the potential Hi your own you travel all over the world you speak to young people everywhere and Of course, we owe you big time for it In in terms of being optimistic, uh, what do you think? Where is the objectivist movement and say, I don't know 10 15 20 years from now Or if if if you don't know or just off the top of your head where you see Where do you see yourself in 10 15? Yes, I I would really like to know south of spain on the beach. Um I mean, so I'll give you a few observations. Uh, one The objectivist movement is becoming a global movement Whereas I think it was almost predominantly an american movement and those of us who wanted to participate came here So I immigrated here tells an immigrant here Lena picoff's an immigrant here. Obviously, in rand is an immigrant to the united states I think it's becoming a global movement where a lot of people will not immigrate here They will stay in their countries But because those countries are getting better and and the the difference between america and the rest of the world is shrinking not because Because they're getting better, but also because we're getting less good unfortunately, but So I think it's a global movement. If you look at iron man book sales right now Book sales out of the united states has almost reached the same level as book sales in the united states Which is amazing because Book sales out of the united states used to be close to zero. They used to be negligible up until just a few years Maybe a decade ago So I think I think one answer is it's it's it's global I think it's substantially bigger and you're starting to see it with ocon growing and and I think it could grow a lot more I think it's much more embedded into the culture in terms of an explicit alternative that people are discussing and debating I I think this so-called intellectual dark web is a positive phenomena because I think what you're seeing among them is Intellectuals who are not strike you at least as honest not power-lusting. They're wrong They're wrong. Let's be clear But but they don't have that same nihilistic You know ugliness That so many of of intellectuals both on the left and the right have had in the past. There's a certain interest in Debate and discussion and and the truth at least I hope so And I think it's an opportunity for us to be injecting our ideas much more significantly into the culture It's why you know, I I think it's a positive move to have A disconversation here with jordan peterson tomorrow I think that's a positive direction because we get to expose people to our ideas in ways that we couldn't in the past So I I'm optimistic about our ability to continue To get our ideas out there and and to start and look I see so many signs And I didn't say this in the talk, but I should have I believe iron rand has had a massive impact on the culture I believe one of the reasons the enlightenment is still around is because of iron rand And I'll give you just a few quick examples In 1950s 60s capitalism was a dirty word What made capitalism a more positive word by the time we get into the 80s Was iron rand and maybe some Milton Friedman But they're the ones who popularized the term capitalism and made it cool again And I don't know that ronald reagan gets elected if not for iron rand I really don't Millions of people read out was shrugged. They didn't become objectivists, but it made them a little bit better It made them just a little bit more reality oriented It made them just a little bit more sympathetic to markets and capitalism more skeptical of government And I think reagan won and thatcher won maybe because of those elements can't prove it We know that the draft was eliminated in the united states partially because of iron rand's influence over the people who are on the commission to eliminate the draft To evaluate the draft But more than that you find me a startup in silicon valley and I know You know somebody's going to give me a whole list of them But find me a startup in silicon valley where the ceo hasn't at least read the fountain atlas shrug Again now become now become an objectivist. They don't But think about what atlas shrug does even if you don't become an objectivist It gives you more courage. It inspires you and they all say this If you know in private when they don't have to but whether it's the founder of uber Or the founder of oracle larry ellison or the founder of sun sam mcnealy Or the or it turns out steve jobs. Who knew but according to wasniac steve jobs was inspired by atlas shrug Or michael dell who was reading fountain head and atlas shrugged as he was assembling his first computers in his dorm room in austin taxis Or You know my guess is almost all of them and then go to the fortune 500 companies Certainly 10 years ago. Maybe still today As they become more and more crony. I think this number comes down But how many of them read atlas shrugged? Well, like a large number A large number of successful ceos read it and then inspired them and they think it's a great book. They didn't become objectivists But it's a step. It's a move. It's all going in the right direction because they are keeping the world going They're inspiring their companies. They are bringing their reality orientation to their businesses Even if they don't know that that comes from this philosophy iron ran reinforced all that so she's already in the culture everywhere everywhere And you know, I was just talking to laws yesterday He's going to be talking later today and he said, you know all these he he bought are you going to tell the story? Yeah, he bought 20 000 copies of atlas shrugged years ago in 2002 or something like that Uh, and he actually wrote his own little intro to it And it was great and he took these and he put the Saxo bank logo on every one of these uh, and he distributed them to the leading Business people and some politicians and intellectuals in europe And to this day he gets notes From people who who read the book and how wonderful and how changed their life and inspired them and made them a little bit better Not turned them into objectivists It's not going to happen The number of people who become objectivists is always going to be small It's the fact that we change the way people think about the world in subtle implicit ways And they are better and the people around them are better and their companies are better and the world is better So rand has already had a profound impact On businessmen in europe because of the work laws is done on businessmen and students in the u.s Because of what john allison has done is what the institute has done of what all of you do when you go out there into the world And talk to people and recommend that they read atlas shrugged and and and just Live a good life. So people see you living a good life and want to emulate you so I see that just continuing and and and it compounds, you know compound interest So just like more's law with where it becomes exponential, right and and computing power just goes like this Which is part of that optimism story Well, maybe there's a more's law to objectivism, right? We're still we're still here We're still going like this, right? We still can't see the little differences But there's an inflection point at some point where it goes in exponentialized that can happen in 10 15 years probably not but It's moving in the right direction. It's growing in influence More people are exposed more of you are living out there and talking about these ideas and so More better My question is on bill gates On car gave a talk at the ferro society at some meeting saying bill gates said I want to put a pc on every desk in the planet and then today billions of people have that My question is on the motive As you guys you just said mr. Law is bartending thousand copies stamped the logo on And did it I imagine because he loves this world and existence But do you think the motive could also be The alternative altruism because my theory is after the justice department did what he did But they did to gates it broke his heart and he adopted the philosophy of if you can't beat enjoyment he basically went the quick man route But this was before that this was when he was with microsoft and he loved his work Yeah, so I can't I can't get into bill gates's head So I can just tell you what I see when I see him and what I think I think bill gates loves life And he enjoys He loved microsoft loved microsoft and loved what he was doing at microsoft. It was a challenge. It was fun It had a vision. He was going to change the world and he did he changed the world In profound deep ways that that I think historians will have to look back and see the extent to which having a desktop In every home changed the world um But I think he also Is because he's so smart. He's very connected to the explicit ideas that are out there So he struggles I think between his sense of life is his passion for living His love of technology his love of life and the fact that he thinks he should feel guilty for all of that I don't know that he feels guilty I think he thinks he needs to feel guilty I think see I think he thinks that to be moral he should feel guilty And so he does things that he thinks a guilty person would do Like say it was all luck. Does he really believe that? Does he really believe that? I mean, I think he thinks he believes that right or like starting a philanthropy and abandoning leaving microsoft completely And you know, I watched him on television and you can see when he talks about his investments when he talks about technology He lights up. He's so excited. He loves this stuff. He talks about philanthropy. You know, he's okay He's not miserable, but it's not the same thing but he's not He doesn't have enough Philos, you know good philosophy to be able to abandon that and go with what he really loves and what is really good Right, so I think and you can see he's very intellectual. He reads a lot and he reads all this stuff So he's read john walls and he's read all the modern philosophy and he He he's accepted it. He's absorbed it. It it doesn't go on deep But at some level he's accepted and he's accepted that he should feel guilty at some point And that's the tragedy. That's the real tragedy, right? That's the tragedy. I talked about the one tragedies We don't have the world we could have the other tragedies. What it does to the individual soul. What could be more tragic? Should bring tears to your eyes Than a giant like bill gates Thinking he should feel guilty that's depressing just to think that right so You know and he's read ian ran so I you know, he's been offered the alternative and he's rejected it from what I can tell Hello, hey So you mentioned, uh, steve jobs, uh, jeff bezos and now I heard your thoughts on Bill gates as well. Yeah, uh, I was wondering and this is probably inevitable But what are your thoughts on elan musk? Is he so recently he's been kind of decreeing the media? Saying they're they're saying all these terrible things about me Uh, so he's closer to sort of the ororkean hero, uh, like Like an industrialist or is he closer to just a really convincing Robert stadler? Yeah Look elan musk is is a contradiction because he is not He's certainly not how to work um, he but but he's also not a James tagger you right He first of all, he's brilliant I mean the guy for people who know him and from what I've heard and for what I see the guy's brilliant I mean he really is brilliant And he he is a problem solver and he knows how to solve problems But he's also a crony a complete and out of crony Who who lives from the government from government projects from government money from government financing He builds a a car That you know, uh, only certain people can afford and yet all of us are subsidizing particularly if you live in california Heavily heavily subsidizing right Um and runs on coal as alex epstein likes to say a coal car um And he pretends he's virtuous because he's done this right now again Some of the science and the technology is amazing, but it's amazing as a luxury car for a few people who who think it's really cool to drive A it's not something we we shouldn't be subsidizing anything, but certainly not subsidizing something like this um His solar panel thing same thing right All about subsidies and all about government incentives and all about working with the government So he's this genius who sold his soul To the state to the collective to You know, and this is how he makes his money by exploiting that and he's still applying as genius in some ways But It's so tied up that I really have no respect for him. I mean I respect his genius, but I I I Disrespect him as a human being Thank you. Hey, um, I have a two-part question, but I think we don't have much time So maybe you can bumble the answer together. All right, so the first part of the question is um How do you think government subsidization into the private sector distorts the implicit philosophy that you described earlier? And the second question is What do you think the implicit philosophy at work is? Uh in people that work for uh illegitimate sectors of the government like the irs Oh, wow. Okay. So what do I think they well, I think it distorts it and weakens it and it disrupts it So when reality is not your judge But how much money you're gonna get from the government like in like along Moscow like tesla Then that reality gets distorted. I don't think it's an accident that tesla's having a lot of problems right now Because it hasn't been it hasn't been required to live up to the marketplace It's being shielded from the marketplace and now You know, it's it has to face the reality that You know, he's he's missed all these deadlines and there's a good chance They go on there because they're gonna have to raise capital and i'm not sure the capital is there right people have lost So it ultimately leads to failure. I think subsidies lead to failure. I think subsidized industries But it changes your whole orientation instead of focused on reality You're focused on politics You're focused on schmoozing. You're focused on lobbying. This is you know So one of the phenomenons that you see is that the type of CEO who rises to the top at large publicly traded companies today Are not CEOs who are driven by a business mentality Right, I think business mentality. I think jack welsh at g e in the 1980s And then when I think political mentality, I think of jeff emel to g e since then Jeff emel is a politician a schmoozer get along subsidy seeking Bad guy And he destroyed g he destroyed g the g companies got You know, uh, forget his name now, um The guy we were g that I mentioned a minute ago welsh I mean built an amazing company and emel destroyed it. That's what subsidies do that's what and the problem is that the subsidies also Caused the wrong people to become seo so when the board had to decide But when replacing jack welsh replacing with another jack welsh A productive genius somebody focused on making money Versus a politician they chose the politician because they knew the world was changing So the whole orientation of business changes and it diminishes that implicit philosophy that's built into business This is one of this is why I think if you if you think about Uh role models if you think about heroes if you think about great businessmen today They're primarily in tech Because it's not regulated or not as regulated so regulated. It's not as regulated, right? So so there they can still rise up on that basis Okay, last question make it quick Otherwise anu is gonna come out So good morning, and thank you. I'm really really happy that you're more optimistic I think about 10 years ago. You said that you there was a whole idea about going to Or forming something and then you have sure and all that There was a there's a there's a friend of mine who's actually contributed to the institute very very wealthy individual Um who about 10 years ago when I think I told you this story Um was said, you know, let's buy estonia It was like there's one and a half million people there. How much could it cost? like And when I told him I'm moving to portuico He said, huh? um Those portuican bonds They're really cheap. What if I bought them all up and forced them to put to put you as governor I said, cool. Let's do it, right? He's a character a great guy and and but yes, that's how that's how he thinks So I would have never thought of buying estonia Not in my wealth Yeah, I mean Maybe I'm more optimistic. I don't know if I'm more optimistic than I was 10 years ago. You you think I am, all right Yeah, if you listen to my podcast, I don't come across as that's optimistic. So I don't know I really think it's it's um It's expecting doom and gloom and it not happening Um expecting the financial crisis to be much worse than it was Seeing the phenomenal advancements that technology has made over the last 10 20 years and and seemingly Unstoppable reading a little bit about Kind of Moore's law and the potential for Moore's law and other areas in technology Uh, I think uh, true. Oh gambora gave me a book called abundance at some point Which was inspiring about what what is possible to and now I think it's a little too much But but the trend and and what's going on And just living another 10 years and hey it lives good and um And starting to think about why is it right? It shouldn't be Right if if at least my superficial rationalistic view and granted this is a wrong view of yeah It shouldn't you know look at all the bad stuff and why is they good stuff? Why can how does the good stuff live with the bad stuff? So I think it's a combination of those things Maybe because I'm not CEO of the iron man institute anymore It all starts out optimistic I don't know it's just it's just looking at the world thinking about it more engaging with it more And and seeing what's out there and I do think seeing what we've done over the last 20 years And where objectivism has gone in 20 years and real starting to realize The ways in which iron man has affected the world I think inspires me and maybe and part you know what part of it is and I've said this before it's it's going global It's it's going to other countries and seeing you know Okay, I'll end with this right in 2004 my wife and I went to china and You know, I I had the typical objective is view of china It's a bubble There's nothing there because they're too authoritarian. They can't be any real progress. It's all pretend. It's all fictitious And I remember I was gonna go we were going to thailand and a friend of mine said you should go to shanghai I said who has time for shanghai. I've got to be at this other place I'm giving a lecture in dong guan and I don't want to go to shanghai. He said no, no, no, you got to go to shanghai I said, okay, go to shanghai. So I went for literally for 24 hours. I flew in and flew out, right And we're driving in to shanghai And I got goosebumps I get goosebumps now thinking about it I mean It was unbelievable what I saw and I don't know how many of you have been to shanghai But it's it's it's even more so today than it was in 2004 The skyscrapers the lights the billboards the first thought that went through the line is there's not a single communist here You can't have communism and billboards the size of time squared time squared small is compared to what they have there, right And suddenly and then and then from there we went to dong guan and I thought dong guan was dong guan It's nothing right dong guan was the city of eight million people the 20 years Before did not exist. It was a city in which 50 percent of all the shoes were manufactured in the world It's a city that had a huge tech sector It's a city in which not a single human being sat down because they were so busy They people were busy moving Skyscrapers queens They took my wife on a tour of the largest mall shopping mall in the world With one side there was the venetian misspelled so they wouldn't have to pay royalties to the venetian I mean but literally looked exactly like the venetian from las vegas. I mean this grandeur and i'm going I have this strange feeling that history History happened here and we missed it Something happened here. There was huge And I was thinking In a hundred years nobody will care if george bush or kerry won the election But what happened in china In the 1990s and 2000s is profound It freed up Not completely they're far from free But it's freed up 1.4 billion people It gave productive energy and productive Sanction to hundreds of millions of chinese and they did something with it They created something with it And it wasn't because Objectivism appeared in china It was because they adopted some good ideas that they emulated from america and from japan and again this capitalism reinforces those ideas business work reinforces those ideas and they You know and and and they were passionate about their own lives. These were not Uh, you know altruistic collectivists sacrifices for the for the chinese state These were individuals trying to make their lives the best lives that they thought they could make and they felt less guilty than americans do And it was exciting and I think as I've gone through the world and seen more of that and seen the changes I mean the borough and war fell wow Right in 1980 when i ran was relatively optimistic, right the borough and war was still up Communism was everywhere. It controlled about a third of the world or maybe two-thirds of the world if you count china and the population And and and she was still and now communism's gone. I mean these kids who think they're communists. They don't know what communism you know Anu is there You know why they call themselves social democrats Because there are no socialists The number of socialists real socialists the state owning the means of production The proletarian the dictator of the you know the dictatorship of the proletarian they they exist, but they're Very few of them. So what they want is social democracy. What social democracy is we want We understand that capitalism produces the goods and then we want to capture them and redistribute them I mean that's awful evil bad horrible, but it sure beats communism And it sure beats real socialists Right at least they recognize now as mox did I think but many of his followers didn't that capitalism produces the goods And we can leverage that and we can take advantage of that and we can expand that so I'll end with this our opposition the left on the right They have nothing They have nothing I mean post-modernism is nothing socialism is ridiculous And there are no ideologues on the other side. There's no ideology on the other side I mean religion maybe but there's no other ideology to oppose us. We're it The rest of pragmatists are various forms more altruistic less altruistic, but all pragmatists There's no systematic ideology in the world today In opposition So the world's ours go get it Sorry to break this off, but if you are going to the lunch now, I gave you a wrong room earlier It's going to be in Newport coast next door. Thank you