 So we're talking about freedom and one of the why the camera's here Close One of the amazing things about a concept like freedom is The number of what audience I go to anyway the world right now. I don't wear it is who they are And ask people are you guys for freedom like are you guys for freedom? Anybody here against freedom No, and if you are communists and ask the same question, what do you think the response would be? Everybody was for freedom. I mean freedom is one of these concepts we throw around out there. We don't have fun But in everybody's for nobody's ever against freedom explicit nobody ever said yeah, I want to sleep So do one Oh, I want to be a flick Almost everybody everybody out there is for some conception of Freedom and part of the challenge we have when it comes to freedom is That we're not always talking the same language We're not using the terminology the same When you talk to a bunch of communists, let's say or fascists, that's a really matter And on Niko's talked about the right today. So the same thing when you ask them if they're for freedom They say yes, but then you ask them what freedom is It turns out to be something completely different than I think what most of us have in our mind so You know, it's really really important Generally in life, it's really really important what we're talking about ideas. It's really really important when we're talking about You know how to change the culture or how to Even change your life and important and change things about your own life to be very clear about What kind of what the concept you're using what the words you're using me? And freedom is one of those things that everybody talks about and nobody defines Nobody defines you just and you don't know when somebody's saying after freedom You don't know what they're talking because everybody's for free So really really important to first understand what freedom means and then we can talk about why it's important Before we can talk about why it's important. We need to know what does the concept mean? So what does freedom mean? Do you do whatever you want? So I want five So whatever it's metaphysically possible and you want so I you know, I really feel like slapping you right now in the face Without voting anybody Yes, anybody else what does freedom mean? Yeah, there's no such thing as absolute right? What's absolute freedom because I think there is such a thing as absolute freedom. I have to be absolute Otherwise, there's nothing other Find absolute freedom. You can't fly Well, if we define freedom is doing whatever the hell you wanted then there's no such thing as absolute freedom But it strikes me as you can't define a term in a way that makes applying it impossible unless you're talking about fantasy But we're talking about a real term in real life I think it should have a definition that is doable and Notice that the definition of I can't fly assumes that freedom is You know, it's not kind of subjective. Whatever I feel like You know and and is that what we mean by freedom is freedom the ability to do whatever you feel like doing your perspective of human nature Irrespective of whether you hood other people irrespective of whether it's even possible. I don't think so Particularly if you're going to fight for if you're going to actually go out there And engage with people and try to convince them freedom is a good thing. It better be real It better be something that's achievable. It better not be something. That's a fantasy And I think one of the real problems in the world out there is That people define it exactly that way that there's no such thing as absolute freedom. I can't fly after all I can't I can't reverse a lot of physics shit right isn't that awful and And that's how the left dominant defines freedom You know freedom is Doing whatever the hell you feel like doing it's impossible. So we have to have some limits of freedom So now it's to make a limit to the freedom or we're not admitting the limits of free, but the real question is No, I want to be free But that concept has to mean something to me and when I say I want to be free I don't mean I want to be free from the laws of physics And I don't think that's a meaningful term. What does it even mean to be free from the laws of physics? That would be like, you know, it would be a contradiction. It just doesn't Doesn't add up to anything. So the concept loses all me So somebody else wanted to say something Yeah in the back. What's that? So to never let the sake of others that never live and never and never have them to live for your sake and have you live for their sake Yes, both go to our oath There's a sense in which that is but that wouldn't be a definition of freedom that would be I would say that would be the model precondition kind of a really living freedom that would be You know more basic than the political concept I think freedom is a political concept and that's why The freedom fly is not even an issue because that's that's not a political issue Freedom is a political concept. It's a concept of late to our relationship the end of the day with other people in The social context if you know that there's that I are you free? It doesn't really mean anything It doesn't really mean it. Yeah, yeah, so I would just like to Challenge possible to challenge metaphysical possibility there that for example with technological Developments it is true that well, we can't find the most business But we can't expand the things that are less physically available for us. I love we can create our own freedom to live Absolutely, so absolutely we can do that up to a point right and in every era up to points or some DaVinci wanted to fly So he tried build machines try to do it couldn't didn't succeed and He needed freedom in order to try But he wouldn't say I'm not free because I didn't succeed. So again, what would freedom mean there? Yeah Yeah, so, you know, we're starting to Freedom means they can't force me to do what I don't want to do that's a beginning right that's a beginning So freedom farm Other people courage and freedom farm force feet and farm Authority we understand that for example other people could take you put you in jail when you're in jail. Are you free? No right Even if you deserve to be in jail, you're not free Why aren't you free? What are they? What are they limiting you your capacity to do? So put it now in a positive rather than negative because freedom is not a negative concept It's a positive concept. It has you know negative Negative that the non-coercion is part of the definition, but it's not what it means, but it's not the essential What's the essential? Yeah, the ability to act freedom is the ability to act in the world in pursuit of Your values The values you have chosen based on what using what? Your mind so I Want to fly? Okay, that's a value now. I can use my mind to figure out how to do it But it's not I'm just gonna flop my my hands and jump off a cliff and flop Right, it means using your mind in order to achieve something in order to pursue something so Freedom is the freedom to act Using your mind in pursuit of your values Read or without Corrosion force Authority You know again, I don't think freedom is just a negative free of course And then it's a concept that basically says anything to do with it. How you want That's not a positive version of freedom at least as I see it as I think we should all see ability to live your life The way you go out there and pursue values and achieve something and succeed in something, right? We are yes, we are all the cogent force and all that stuff So when we talk about freedom or when Rand talks about freedom when we talk about freedom in the context of You know trying to have an impact on the world The vision is a positive vision and this is You know, this is the challenge because as I said a lot of people I think talk about freedom And their visions are very different of what that means If you're libertarian the vision is just straight out negative Right, it's lack of code and Then you should be able to do whatever you want. It doesn't have any any more Contact It's just whatever As long as there's no coercion web, but for Rand Everything has our content Suddenly everything political has more content So there's a purpose for Freedom the purpose is You'll let The purpose is your values the purpose is your mind and there's a reason why no courage We'll get to that in a minute why you have yet you have to add that no courage All right, so that's our conception of freedom very different. I think from the what's out there in the world Always important when you talk about freedom to define it so you know who you're talking to and you know What we're talking about like every concept we need to be able if we don't if we're not talking about the same thing. We're talking You know Impat power law but not actually confronting the same kind of issues the same kind of Why is freedom important and and you I think it's important to know That Freedom is really rare It's like human beings have been on the planet. I don't know almost sapiens anybody know a hundred thousand years Some form of humanoid maybe much longer than that, but at least tomosapiens have been around for a hundred thousand years I've got a hundred thousand years. We've been a planet on this planet And I'm not I'm not assuming we were another planet before that but you know hundred thousand years that we evolved into being almost sapiens How many of those years are we being we even a little right not not With some coach not not just not wait you you know You're completely constrained where you can act to some extent based on your own judgment in pursuit of your own values Yeah, how often is that happen? What's that? 250 years So the last 250 years so it makes life right now so special because I know how I know how Easiest to drive a thing dark and make the world we live in right now seem awful and horrible and things are going terrible And the world is ending and yet we right now are living at the best time ever to be human and alive, right? from many perspectives Certainly from material perspective But we're free. We're relatively free 250 years maybe a little bit more maybe there were other periods like not current Greece for the ancient Greece Right that period of as Donald played or at least part of that period wasn't but not all of it was What were people free in a period in the Roman Republic? Maybe there was a few maybe there's a decade or two in Venice So they were relatively free, you know, they've been pockets in human history where people have been free never last Never last I mean the amazing thing about the modern world is how long it lasts right we've been basically free for about 200 250 years in the West in other places mean a lot shorter. I just be I was just in Yeah, I've been a lot of places, but I was just in Georgia and You know just like being free since like a lot of Eastern Europe since 1991 It was never free before that had three years as a Republic from 1918 to 1921 where they had relative freedom in Georgia But then there was so before they were left in empire then they were Soviet Union and not even Soviet Union crumbled Are they so for them for example? in our world freedom is How long have the Chinese been free? never Vietnamese never Right, even the limited freedom that we complain about constantly in the West Much of humanity has never experienced Should cause you to think about it. This is not easy. There's something going on here that is really weird But we love freedom. We love our freedom. We think we should have more of it. We fight for more freedom. Yeah It's it's almost never existed No, they won't Now they won't they're horribly oppressed by tribal leaders and witch doctors who told them all kinds of myths We have no evidence and no reason to believe there were free people before that But they could leave their tribe and go and switch to another tribe. They could emigrate or they could decide I'm not going hunting today I'm gonna go to the beach today. No way were they free Crosion was everywhere in those kind of societies And all you have to do is look at those societies that have survived in Amazon jungle in Africa in New Guinea Or whatever and then are free Not free in the sense that they can use their own judgment and pursuit their own values as individuals There's no individualism in driving three agricultural societies Individualism is a massive achievement Freedom is a massive achievement very very very rare So we have to say why it's so rare if we're gonna fight for it and why people reject it Why don't people want to eat it? And I would argue people don't want free because if they want to freedom, it's relatively easy to get it if they're enough of us Challenges that people don't want people have never won I mean it's night the tank as I think George Bush said in I don't know 2002 2003 every human being has You know read them in their heart. They all want to be free We just give them an opportunity and I'll jump on the bandwagon I think I think we learned any rock that maybe people don't always want to be free But you didn't need to look at Iraq you need to look at human history and you could see that So why is freedom so hard? Why is freedom so difficult? Yeah So people are looking for safety true But do you go back to the question of what? Why do they want to why is safety? See if I go to a country like that? Finally, but a circumstances like that. I don't feel safe. I Mean, it's not like It was safe in Middle Ages Europe. It's not like it's safe in North Korea It's not like it's safe in Iraq under Saddam Hussein that that can yet it might be a feeling of Something but I'm not sure safety is it because they're not safe in any of those environments. Yeah They don't want to think I think that's a big part of it and then you have to ask the question of why don't they want to think Very regularly So the people don't have power don't want freedom because I So true we don't have many alternatives again, it's only modern times that we've had freedom People who hold power want to keep it. There's no question about that and they'll do anything to keep it And it's pretty difficult to get rid of them although it is possible and we've seen lots of examples So our history of getting rid of people with power when the people who don't have power want freedom They know they can rise up and get rid of them It's just a matter of time and enough enough people and enough passion and enough commitment But it's fundamentally the people who don't have power Through all human history. I don't think I've really wanted freedom and part of it is that it's scary risky There are powers to be that are that are you know oppressing you that are limiting you so it's dangerous to seek out freedom and There's something about this idea of they don't want to think right and there's something really fundamental They don't want to take responsibility for their own actions. I would say even deeper than that I Think fundamentally through our human history individuals Didn't didn't think they were empowered to and didn't want to take responsibility over their own life They didn't want to take responsibility over their own life Are you going to give me some water? And I think that is That's the key right if I don't want to take responsibility of our own life If I'm worried about taking responsibility for my own actions, if I'm worried about taking responsibility for my own thinking Then I and if doing taking responsibility is going to cause me to be afraid going back to the safety issue That I don't want to be free. I Want to be told what to do more comfortable much easier follow orders It's no way, but you know the risk is I don't think about the risk Still risk But it's a different type of risk. It's a risk that divorces me from that responsibility of thinking But why do people want that? Why do people not want to take responsibility for their own lives? And I'd say that basically Two fundamental reasons for that and they go to the heart and the core by man's philosophy And they go to the heart of the core of why freedom is so rare and Why I think we have an opportunity today to achieve freedom that past generations past humans have did not have so To advocate to believe in freedom to want to be free one has to believe in two things one that you are capable of taking care of yourself that You are capable of thinking and using your mind to achieve your values Right, you're capable and to Or be the second one Well, that's capable. It's a capable would include possible. But what's the second one? Wanting it some not exactly wanting it because this is the reason why you'd want it or not want it Just behind it Yeah, that's a worthy of it So what is it you capable of it and choose that you're worthy of? That philosophy I don't know how much philosophy you covered today But what is the first in what area philosophy is the first? Am I capable of it? What what what branch of philosophy with that couple was that? Well, it has an answer to that but what branch of philosophy that would be Epistemology right am I capable of thinking do how do I know what do I know and the second one is? More more it right am I worthy of it? Should I be able to use my mind? Is that okay? And notes that almost all philosophy says no wonder How ideas the ideas that we're taught by philosophy But no no You're not capable of thinking reality your reason your your rational mind is not connected to reality You know we go back to I think the most influential plus all of human history. Who would that be? Play it play does the most influential philosophy in all his you don't see the world You don't know what's real The world of reality of real reality is in another dimension. It's somewhere else Who who communicate who can? Access the other this other world of Perfection of of real reality who has access to it Oh, yeah, that's why we're making King right? He starts out as a block or we make him king because he's the only one who has access to the real reality And we completely depend on him if we're free to use our mind to achieve our values over happen to us Well, why are our faces? We have no chance because you know to Use Plato's cave metaphor which is in the shadows. We don't see anything We're just gonna pop against up against the wall because we were basically blind We need the guidance of This expert with the guidance of the philosopher the guidance of the person who gets the Real knowledge to be able to achieve our values So we are not competent Enough to be free and if you say that to people and if you You know and you look at philosophy. I mean Kant says the same thing Model philosophy says the same thing. You don't know what reality is now. They vary about whether anybody does You know some water policy just throws out the philosophy came together with you So that we're all blind. Well, just wondering about but at the end of the day You are not competent to achieve your values. Your mind is not competent to guide you You have to have a real theory that your mind is connected to reality that your mind is actually you're learning things from reality from Nature that you can then integrate that you can then reshape nature to achieve your goals That's what it means to act in nature and So much about intellectual world thinks that that is just You don't have that capacity if you don't have the capacity tell with freedom. I Want some of you to tell me because I can't figure it out. I can't see I can't know so we don't have freedom to a lot of it stand because We don't have the confidence in our mind They can actually guide us What's up? Chief of up and I think this starts even before Plato. I think religion plays a big role here, right? What does religion teach us? religion teaches us that You know, it's just There's enough out and he tells you what's good and what's that what's right and what's wrong. Oh, no That I thought he you know is God Allah, whatever you want to call him, right? You hope up. He is up there and And some people can communicate with him the pope the prophets and so on and then they tell us what to do It's the same kind of story as Plato's But we don't know We just follow a book written thousands of years ago and we're supposed to follow it blindly That's our freedom Everything is there to undermine your capacity to use your mind in pursuit of your values Forget about the fear coercion We're gonna go to that So what you have to believe you have to have a theory you have to have a philosophy that says your mind is capable Your mind is capable of knowing reality your mind is capable of of identifying Values that are worth pursuing and then guiding you towards And what about awareness? Are we worthy of freedom? Are we worthy of? Choosing all values and pursuing all values and living our own life much of philosophy and certainly religion Tells us the answers. No You're not you have original sin and you need to make up for it It's and your moral obligation is to whom who's your primary moral obligation to in life Based on every other philosophy other than Aristotle 9 grand can't use those two God right, so you're just sacrificial being that is That's it. Whatever God wants. Is that freedom? No, you just do what God tells you You know worthy of using your mind pursuing your own values you get to choose your values Who the hell are you? Your point is you're supposed to serve God is one alternative. Who else is supposed to serve? What's that? Yeah, you have to talk loud The saints the tribe the poor the the parliamentarian the Aryan race fill in the blank You are nothing you Just up there to serve the other So you're not worthy Unless you deny yourself and if you deny yourself, there is no freedom You're there to serve you're there to sacrifice. I mean the whole morality that is conventional morality out there It expressed the convention world is a couple of morality of altruism other isn't and then we could fill in the blank on who the other is but your purpose is to serve the other and Why is your purpose to serve the other because you're not worthy of serving yourself that would be won't that be if you serve yourself What do we call that? Selfish is that a good thing? Well, I mean you buy a split, you know, okay Outside of this room. Is that a good thing anybody in the world think that's a good thing? No I believe that's horrible. Let's speak of a behavior So the reason we don't have freedom It's not because people don't understand economics or not because people don't understand politics The reason we don't have freedom is because people don't think we're capable of it and they don't think we're worthy of So the battle is not a political battle. It's an economic battle. The real battle is the logical yes We can think for ourselves. Yes, we can't take care of ourselves Yes, not only can we take responsibility for our lives, but we can live that responsibility We can execute on that responsibility. And second, I'm not your slave. I'm worthy of my own values I can't be worthy if I live up to them, right? I'm worthy of living for myself And this is Ryan's revolution and this is why there's sense in which I meant is the first philosophy To fully explain why freedom is a good thing and why freedom is attainable and why freedom is justified Because who else out there in the history of philosophy has said you have the tool to know reality of the tool to take full responsibility over your own life and to live it and to choose your values and that tool is reason and That you're worthy because your life is the standard your own life is the standard of value the standard of morality Who else has ever said that other than rare people hint at it people kind of suggest it It's in the air in the enlightenment Right the moving in that direction right in declaration independence. I say you have a right to your own life your liberty and serve your own happiness that so that they're really getting a sense of that and Thomas Jackson, you know bring everything before reason is that quote with even existence of God So they're getting close But Lance solidifies all that knowledge. She gives us a base from which now we can advocate for freedom Because we can we can take responsibility for our lives and we're worthy of taking responsibility for our lives now Why is that? no Why freedom is You know the the the ability to act Based on one's own rational judgment in pursuit of one's own rational values Free of coercion of force. Why is free of coercion of force? Why do we need that? What's that? You're pointing at somebody? I haven't you see my cue Cannot act in the face of force But it's even deeper than you cannot act. What else can't you do in the face of force? You cannot think You cannot use your basic means of survival, which is your mind. You cannot use that That is necessary for you To survive which is to think you cannot do it in the face of force so for land The reason for this so evil is because force Denies us a capacity to be rational Denies us ability to think for ourselves. If I put it, you know, I put a gun to your head. You're thinking is irrelevant Your ideas are irrelevant. Your values are irrelevant. You do what I tell you to do. Otherwise life is over there is nothing else and Corrosion and force of that, you know, there's no Accident that suddenly we got a lot of scientists. I don't know the 18th century and there were very few scientists in the 13th and 14th century I mean a few but very few Why was an explosion of science in the 18th century 19th century? Because the church wasn't burning people at the stake absolutely in a sense the gun was removed But if the church is burning you at the stake for coming up with ideas for discovering truths to go counter to the dogma Maybe I'd rather not discover truths or maybe if I discover truths But once that gun is removed and it was removed by by intellectuals it was removed in the 18th century by enlightenment thinkers by people saying Truth is what matters Started be removed a little bit before that, you know, Galileo Of course already challenges the church already the church doesn't feel empowered to burn him at the stake That's a little bit extreme by that point. They just put him in house arrest Human civilization is changing And as we remove the gun as we remove force as we remove authority What happened more scientists more philosophers more people discovering truth more entrepreneurs What's that more artists although artists are kind of I mean, that's a whole lot of issue, but our times odd in a sense starts the whole process Because it starts in art right the Renaissance is a is a autistic revolution that then sped to everything else, but But you just have more freedom to think to explore to challenge and That's Why we don't want to push it. We don't want to push it because it's the anti-mind Because it's the thing that stops the human mind and the human mind is how we what makes us human It's pretty I am surprised when I give these talks As people what makes us human and people don't know It's like empathy So what makes us human? I mean, it's uniquely to human beings empathy, but there's a reason for that or cooperation That's what makes us human. That's what's his name's theory He's really philosopher. How are we? How are we what makes us special cooperation really? What's that? hands cooperate these cooperate What makes us human is our ability to think Put it simply ability to reason ability to be rational ability to You know extract from the facts of reality come up with abstractions and then Because of ability to manipulate those abstractions and discover the truth about the world then going through the world and change it and manipulate all that reason Thinking our mind is what makes us human and Corporation is a consequence of that even empathy is a consequence of that our mind allows us a particular mind That allows us to introspect allows us to understand ourselves and to see other people we can project on to them What we would feel in that situation and you know in that that's where but to come so it doesn't come It's not some automatic response that we have that is preprogrammed in us. It comes from our ability to think comes our ability to reason and understand ourselves and try to understand But it's it's fascinating to me that somebody is not as low as somebody who's a philosopher You know can't can't see that and Nobody wants it. It's interesting almost nobody wants to say No, what makes us human is our ability to think And what we need to preserve is that ability to think people get it Maybe but no intellectual that I know of out there is really expressing with that Which is shocking because it's the most basic of all our years. It seems once you get it seems really straightforward and simple What else makes us human? Standing on two legs that's not quite thumb thumbs if you hit the thumbs one thumbs or what makes us human? That's a difference between us and all other What's that So we start calling we start violence and we become weaker I Don't I don't think so. No, I mean why would we become weaker it opens up more opportunities for us? our strength doesn't come from fighting other human beings our Strength out than we come from overcoming nature. It our strength comes from reshaping our environment to fit our needs and Our strength the day of the day is our You know mental strength It's our ability to think and yes, you know, we evolved to have some physical strength as well because we again had to deal with nature So no, I don't think it weakens us in any way It doesn't weaken us mentally because the challenges of how to live a good life still exists. They might be different, but they still exist There is a theory today. I Mean both political and I'd say it's still in kind of moral epistemological There is a growing tendency in the modern world today to think we're too pampered phone Life is too easy So we've lost our ability there to be sharp and to be focused Yeah, you know teenagers. I don't know if you know but there's a huge crisis right now teenage depression particularly girls big crisis teenage depression and Some of it is oh the pampered the rich that's likes too easy Another is you know my favorite thing This is causing depression massive depression. I mean that's consensus right now. It's social media and iPhones Before the phone everybody's happy But that's so they're all these kind of things but no, I mean To me the answer is pretty obvious People are depressed today because I like values Nations yes Yeah Yeah No, the other one would whip the other parties, you know like that why Because I mean you can see this a little bit of Ukraine right? Why? What what what makes it possible to win? Whether economically or military How do you win militarily or you cannot What's that Yeah, you have to think to invent really sophisticated cool weapons Oh, you have to think in order to start businesses that create wealth So what happens to the country that has corrosion? It gets poorer and poorer and poor or if it gets richer Let's say it has not that much corrosion then it gets richer slower What happens the country that is truly free where individuals are free to think for themselves Entrepreneurs the free to invent new products to build new things hire new people hire people Build expand what happens this country gets richer richer richer richer and the richer gets not only can it invent new weapons And buy new weapons build new weapons, but it's just much much richer in this country's nothing I mean this is why the Soviet Union lost even though there's a lot more corrosion in Soviet Union America was kind of Campered and rich and all of that and it didn't even have to fight a war in the Soviet Union collapsed Why because corrosion leads to collapse corrosion leads to death corrosion leads to stagnation Freedom leads to growth excess prosperity and power You know militarily power comes ultimately for an economic pump You're not gonna become militarily powerful unless you have some wealth to be able to invest in the air motivation get to fight more Guess who's a better fight Somebody was fighting for their leader and their country and they guard or somebody's fighting for themselves and they happen They're family and the people they love and and and their own life You can see again that a little bit of Ukraine right now, right? Ukraine is a much more motivated in the markets because the Ukrainians know what they're fighting for. What are they fighting for? Well Some sense of freedom, but they're fighting for their life. They're fighting for their property They're fighting for their families. They don't want to be oppressed by a Putin and what are the Russians fighting for? They even know some vision of a wonderful Russian, you know a mystical Russian Empire that they have no clue how it benefits themselves So they're unmotivated Ukrainians are motivated because they're their homes So that's a different screen self-interested and a completely self-less motivation, yeah You know, it's it's selfless deep down. Yes, it's selfless. It's also mystical Who wants a big event They're the little Russian soldier running around in the field there who's just been pulled off the street and Put into a thing. I mean, maybe some of them believe it. I doubt most of them believe it Many of them are doing it because they love Putin or they love Russia and they bought into the thing, but that's not That's not so interest. That's you know, that's them sacrificing their interest for greater Russia But great Russian is not a value to it's not a rational value to them. It's not something that actually enhances their lives So they're fighting for you know, how you always taught I mean Jordan Peterson everybody says you have to look for a Meaning in life somewhere out there Something bigger than yourself now, I don't know anything bigger than me for me Not for you, but you are nothing small, but for you You are the standard of everything You're you know, the meaning that you're gonna find is not up there Because for example people said people ask me Why fight for freedom freedom is a freedom something bigger than yourself No, I know where I want to be free why don't I want to be free? Because I want to use my mind in pursuit of my values that she might have It's on me Kind of an irrational sense. It's about me the freedom is subservient To my needs as a human being my needs require freedom freedom is not above me freedom as in is part of me It's a requirement for my survival. It's a requirement for my happings. That's why I want to be free So they pretend that there's something above them, but that's pretend. Let's make believe It's primarily young people. We did it. Oh, well, it's wrong And it's middle-aged white men working class So why Sure I mean there is the connection to dangerous connection, but there is some connection When you're trying to survive when you're literally trying to survive There's a sense of which you don't have time to be depressed You're busy surviving you're busy working hard You know, I don't think you're happy, but you're not depressed because you're just active. You're just trying to When you removed somewhat from The life-and-death kind of context and you're comfortable and everything now you have time to think and you have time to to and You have time to read and study and what are you learning? The man is incompetent the reason is futile Then your life belongs to the tribe and the group and the race and that fill in the black, right? Something other that's the person That's objectively depressing Right, if I believe that I would be super depressed and That's the sense in which what you have to have people develop is a a confidence in their own mind Confidence in their own ability call itself esteem, right? It is the sense that I am competent. I'm able and then Worthiness again, this is also component of self-esteem. I am worthy to be on this earth I'm worthy to achieve these achievements. I'm worthy of the soul. It's not about sacrificing to them It's about living my life based on my thought, you know values in pursuit of my happiness and that's okay That's good. Not just okay, and if if people accept that Then I think happiness is relatively easy Because now it's just a matter of okay within the scope of all the values available all the things available in the world What are the ones I'm most excited about? But I've already answered the question of I'm worthy of happiness and this is the means to which right? I have to use my mind to pursue values just how I fill in which values it is So You know people being depressed as a consequence of again unworthy and incompetent and and I don't think that there's an accident That's rising it's rising with you know I think they say since 2011 or 2012 depression rates among young people have gone up dramatically you know that's also the time where you kind of the beginning of political kind of wokeness came in and and Identity politics and identifying yourself with a particular race or sexuality or whatever and you know That's a new tribe and a new undermining of the individual and all these things I think are connected and now what am I doing with my life? How do I do it? Well, how do I think about this? How do I act? It just confuses everything And I think it gets worse as the philosophy in the cultures was Yeah Yeah I asked me about this question and he told me to ask you Did he also answer it or did he just say after all he gave us big suggestions for okay, so he wouldn't commit to anyone So I find it like very difficult to have any meaningful conversations with people who you know subject themselves to Make the leaves and it's like people are more like a lot of people are more disposed to I'm more disposed to not thinking and not taking responsibility rather than thinking about what is possible and what they deserve So how do you actually talk to these people because like these ideas are just very attractive Well, I mean the point you have to make to them is that they're not attractive Like imagine I mean you seem like a thinking person imagine not thinking Like it's that like all of passes through my you know, it's a terrific that I give I Think you have to appeal to whatever is good in them if they still is if there's no good in them forget Just walk away. There's no point. Don't waste your time, but if there is good They they they they they smart they are motivated a little bit. They want to be happy. They just confuse They don't know you have to appeal to the positive and you have to project to them. What is possible? So so You know, don't don't just lash out at them, obviously You got a You know depending on why they have a particular point of view of it You have to spin it around and find a way to motivate them If they've got some positive value out they can motivate them to really examine What's going on, right? If somebody says, yeah, I don't want to think it's easy not to think it You know, you know a few scenarios where that even they would get that that's not a good idea So you just want to be a slave you just want to be told but that that's is that really and they go no, no Okay, so you want to think sometimes you want to With the with the boundary why and try to get to why they have this attitude Ultimately, I think even that they don't know it and many of them cannot articulate it It's going to boil down to the fact that they don't believe that it makes a difference And then you have to show them it does it doesn't human history and it doesn't individual use to think on that I mean to be or not to be Hamlet's statement, which is The key question in all of life, right? That's it. It's all it's all to be or not to be it's really to think or not to think and If you can explain that to people and you can cut it show them that then maybe we've got a chance Yeah From single isn't free But if that's so then freedom isn't political content And then they would apply even to an individual me out. So now I didn't say wasn't free. I said he doesn't value food He doesn't value food why? Because he doesn't want to trust his own mind because he's he's getting off He's getting commandments. He's getting authorities and and yes, we might limit it to morality Oh, it's just about the Ten Commandments, but it's always going to expand beyond that because I've already accepted that I can't think for myself in this room and then it spreads into the political room So the more you take religion seriously the less likely you ought to be an advocate of freedom into one for you So you can still be religious and advocate for freedom, but That means you're not taking religion too seriously It's like the Alangman thinkers the Alangman thinkers didn't take religion too seriously So they could be advocates of freedom and them but the more religious the more they took their religious seriously the less freedom politically you could allow So Freedom is a political issue. So the only way you're not free is somebody constrained you But your attitude towards fear that is that that that depends, right? Whether you want freedom or not, yeah No, I don't I don't think I don't think Education is Requirement of human survival, you know what education? I mean that's the next question, right? You can't say education because Which education who is education at what age? In the high school educated to survive. I mean I you could argue that high school education today is a detriment to survive It's one of the reasons everybody's depressed because of the kind of education that's in high school So even if you wanted to make that case you couldn't make it as education You have to make it as a specific type of education a specific quality of education and and that can't be that can't be a right it can't be a right because It has to be produced And if somebody has to produce it you can't ever write to somebody else's products You can't ever write to somebody else's You know effort and time Yeah, so you have to pay for it right so people could use stuff all the time And and and you have to pay for the military if you don't pay for it. It doesn't exist, but But again There's a fundamental You know human life requires thinking So if you you know so the enemy of thinking the thing that rejects thinking is What we need protection from Everything else there's a marketplace. I mean I could say you say you have a right to education. I mean much more important than education food Can't live as man without food So should that be should the government give us vouchers to buy food? Can't live without it. No, not necessarily But if nobody will I mean with food you can get an education Right you need food before you can get educated right studying on an empty stomach talk No, I mean rights are freedoms of action that's it they're not stuff You don't get the military right does not a right doesn't Provide you with military It provides you with the absence of a force. Okay now what is absence of force require It requires a police in the military. It doesn't require education It doesn't require food doesn't require all of these other things the thing that you're trying to eradicate from society is not The rest of the survive So what you're trying to eradicate for society you're trying to eradicate something very very specific and that is force coercion But that you need A military police that's why they're legitimate functions of government and nothing else Yeah Um Do you think we find freedom as a part of the freedom from coercion and as well really to see a lot of use Yeah, freedom from coercion It's part of it because it but the reason you want to be free because it is in order to Yeah, um, what do you how much now? So, um When I started one in nine equal circumstances, uh, what do you make of the? idea that we might have a responsibility to, um, allow people to best pursue their, um, for example, it could be through like Even in a sense of what you're doing to try and educate people into opening their eyes towards their freedom as well. Um, yeah, how much you can square that? So so, um I don't think you have an obligation to say to other people Yeah, the obligation of other people to the extent that it corresponds to your interests to to to your life Uh, generally you benefit from having other people who are educated and who are, uh, You know again free themselves And who can trade with you and who can produce and create So you as an individual have a self interest In establishing freedom in you know, and in some cases even In helping other people directly whether through charity or through direct investment in other people in order to help them You know pursue their values The reason we want freedom Is is because we want to live in a better society in a society where You know as individuals we can live a better life So it always boils down to that. It always boils down to to your own ability to pursue values Just regarding freedom of speech because it's a very, uh, I can't get into that much with this topic because From what extent are you free? Because you can say whatever you want because you're in a party with someone For a quality or a personality So is there a real sense of freedom in that or to me are we Uh, we can even get canceled by the culture And the society as well so Wherever you draw the line at what extent it's okay. What are your thoughts on that? So You know it is it is a tricky issue particularly today because it's such it's so much in the headlines and everything um How does freedom relate to speech? All right, so freedom is our ability to To act Uh in pursuit of our values in uh in pursuit of using our minds in pursuit of our values free of coercion, right? That applies to speech right speeches and act we talk, right? We write we produce and What is not allowed is for somebody to come and use force on it, right? And that's too generally speeches just a particular type of instant of it because We know that historically government has used force in these devious ways Of stopping you from writing certain things and stopping you from from saying certain things But if that speech is no different than any other freedom Nobody how nobody can curse you In a way that stops you or limits your ability again to pursue your life based on your values and your standards uh So I don't think it's any different But remember what is courage and this is where it gets tricky, right? What is courage? Courage in this this physical force It's authentic physical force So if you hurt somebody else's feelings Is that was any physical force used? I mean assuming it's just speech No, so no nobody's violated anything if you're I mean you might not want to hurt other people's feelings for lots of reasons Right, there's no reason or people's feelings for no reason, right? Sometimes it was but but uh, you know, but So but it's not physical force So uh and let somebody literally comes and physically Solts you or physically threatens you then you're not violating their rights. You're not violating their free speech rights uh, so So that is that's one example, but then people say um But you know if twitter Doesn't carry my speech Then it's basically using force because it's it's injecting me from the platform, right? So it's usually posted with you Yeah, but You know if you come to my if if we're running a business and you violate the contract between us, I'll find you is that force No, it's a violation of a contract So it's my property and we have a an agreement or if you come if you uh, If you come into an office and and just don't rely on it I can cure because again, there's an implicit contract associated with Coming on to somebody else's property So again, there's none in a sense. There's nothing special about free speech It's just one of many applications of freedom. It's it's like there's only one right. We only have one right When it comes to individual rights, there's only one right That's right to your life and how is that right violating? with new coercion physical force and threats can't be violated by me saying I don't like you anymore It can't be violated by me insulting you. It can't be violating by me protecting my private property or by Uh, me changing, you know, in a voluntary relationship not wanting to deal with you anymore Fiving you as an employee or just walking away from a relationship So you always have to think about what is it that's happening that is literally a violation and Twitter kicking me up twitter You know, we we have a contractual relationship hasn't worked out for whatever reason We part our ways. No rights are being violated You know, and if they badly did the contract, right, they did something that they said they wouldn't do contractually and I you know, there's I can sue them the courts of law. There's there's a way to deal with those kind of things, but there's no There's no right violation and just the fact that they don't want to deal with me anymore There are lots of people I don't want to deal with and don't They can't stay. Oh, you don't have to deal with me. I demand that you want deals with me because I want Because that that's a limitation my freedom because I don't get what I want That's all point in the beginning way. You want some not like to find your freedom So this idea of freedom without uh coercion definitely sounds cooking due to it But is there a way that we can uh prove that using false principles or some kind of law I think when it comes to human relationships always Be wary about proving from first prince human knowledge doesn't come from first prince human knowledge comes from primarily comes from You know From rational thinking about the situation which is not just deriving some truth from And a is a from from some first. It's about inductively understanding the world around you human relationships So can it be proven logically is the question and the answer is yes, absolutely and and I think that The outline yes, I mean rand rand has written about this and I think proves it logically but logic is informal logic Right logic is about Actually understanding the connection of these ideas to reality and what in this case what human existence requires And you learn how do you know what human existence requires? Do you know that from first principles? If it's just not said you have to take into account that reality is what it is that a is a that there's a law of identity Those are kind of first principles you could argue right axioms But beyond that How do you know what human beings require? Well, you look you you observe you induce some human experience from human history from human You know from people around you what they're doing and from everything you know about history And you can see some behaviors destructive horrible. Oh, okay I can generalize those behaviors into the irrational or the use of force or depending on how you you do the the ultimate induction, but But Everything we know we know ultimately from observation And then understanding generalizing abstracting And seeing the relationship and making sure there are no contradictions No I I I think the problem is that people try to use kind of formal logic to convince and that's very unconvincing I always want formal logic to be Some always even when I was young to give me the sense of they're pulling a trick on There's something here. That's just not right that I'm not seeing Because it is I mean I I don't I can't pull up examples of this But you can take you know deductive logic and you can come to any conclusions you want if you have the right stupid premises Yeah, but you don't the point is that logic encompasses more than just deductive curves and induction is hard That you can't you know Newton didn't derive his is is his is laws just from deduct from persons There has to be there has to be inducting you know inducting plays a massive role in what scientists do But we don't induction is harder to put into Um, what do what do you call it a formal structures? And that's why we feel a little uncomfortable with it, but we have to and scientists do it all the time They use they use that all the time Yeah Well, I would argue that they haven't been sustainable Now further back you go the longer they last, but that's because there's less Competition there's less ideas. There's less communication. There's this knowledge people more ignorant. It's easier to oppress them that the the more people know Uh, the shorter the life of oppressive societies becomes unfree society becomes I don't think you can count Christianity because Uh, it's not one society, but if you look inside of Christianity, right? Constant warfare constant battles constant changes constant up up evils It's a very unstable system The problem is that the alternatives are just other systems of courage The alternative is is almost never freedom Because of the ideas we talked about the ideas that dominate the culture Ideas that are anti-freedom. So then what you get is just constant battles between different ideas of anti-freedom And there's no we alternative out there Why do the systems of freedom last so little so short so short periods of time? Because they have no intellectual foundations So take Venice Venice for a little while was free Almost accidentally they set up a system of governance that basically allowed people a lot of freedom But there was no intellectual foundation for that. They didn't really know what they were doing. They didn't You know think about it. They didn't structure it in the right way. And at some point all it takes is a little crisis a little challenge And they revert back to the system that that is just Uh, and and it doesn't happen all at once. So freedom in Venice. So, you know, slowly deteriorates It slowly becomes more authoritarian and there's no real pushback because it's slow And because again, there's no intellectual movement to advocate for freedom because there's no understanding of freedom The only time in all of human history where there was an intellectual movement dedicated to freedom There wasn't one in Greece. There wasn't one in Rome The first time in human history where there was an intellectual movement dedicated to this was in like So everything before the enlightenment was just We kind of get freedom for a variety of reasons But then we don't quite know what to do with them. We don't know how to defend it We don't know why it's good really and it's easily collapsible But once the enlightenment is there now we have some momentum and that's lasted 250 years. It won't last forever because The enlightenment is being attacked and it's constantly being attacked and it's constantly being challenged And most people today don't even know what the enlightenment was and what the ideas were and what it taught us Um, and it's slowly eroding and ultimately we'll lose our freedoms because of that erosion Unless we revitalize those ideas So Michael I I view a big part of our mission as saving the light Because that's what it means to save freedom means save those ideas Those ideas constantly Uh under attack, but look it enlightenment is Has had a profound impact on human beings already. So if you look if if you go anywhere in the world today Or let's put it this way 300 years ago if I've gone anywhere in the world and said who does your life belong to who's who's light is you Is your life? Well your life implies something but your life, who does it belong to? Almost everybody would say god the king The tribe state that whatever right some some other be Today you can go almost anywhere china my guess is vietnam You know parts of africa all of europe even russia And you ask people who does your life belong to and they say me that's the enlightenment That didn't exist in the past nobody thought in those terms my my life was mine Wasn't a concept So that's new And and that's the heritage of the enlightenment We need to build on that there's a lot of work to build on that But but but the fun some of the foundations is is there how are we doing at the time? All right a couple more questions. Yeah Because While our values might differ the one thing we're not allowed to do is impose our values on each other We used to live our own values And and you know so that you know that creates for example A society with division of labor because we each like doing different things And then we trade So actually See in a society where values are imposed from the top Disagreement of our values always leads to clashes a society where You can live your life anyway You see fit and then you know reality is the only judge of whether it's good or not As long as you don't impose your will on other people Then you either succeed or you fail based on the values that you chose and based on how you pursue them whether you use You know reason or not But there's no they don't work classes because that's the one thing that's banned is the use of physical force Act Yes freedom implies freedom implies that the freedom to act In pursuit of your own values free of coercion and force and an authority that imposes its values on you and ultimately I mean read writes about this that between rational people There are no real conflicts There might be what looked like conflicts, but there are no real conflicts So two people go off their job and only one can get it But if they both understand that There's certain qualifications and we live in a system in which the owner gets to the side Who gets the job? I don't get to the side. That's what freedom means and uh, this other guy might be more qualified than me Then that's not a conflict It's you know, we can't both get one job But it's not, you know, you don't resent the guy for getting the job. You don't resent the employer for because that's You understand the process you understand what goes into it You understand somebody else might be more qualified than you for whatever reason Yeah, does the intellectual firepower to understand objective isn't Greater than the ability to understand Christianity or other religions And and I know if you really like, you know, potentially, you know, it's all about education and the future Incidentally, the next one here is for what if it just stays on that Because it's so hard to understand or I don't know. So let me know or something. Yeah, is that a risk? I don't think so because I don't think people need to understand objective is in order to live Fully understand and indeed most people don't enough theologians of Christianity Right, but imagine a world in which People Uh, you know, where the intellectuals the public intellectuals are constantly talking about Reason and rationality and living your life and values and interpreting the world in that way And people just absorb into the and in some extent this is what happened in America in the 19th century They absorbed into their psyche that they should live for themselves and take post responsibility and pursue their happiness and And they don't understand it. They've never studied the meta ethics And they don't understand the complete validation of reason But you know when they use reason actually works for them and when they go by the emotions they actually flop And and this is how the intellectuals explain it to them right right now You use your reason you succeed use your emotions you flop and the intellectuals tell you no no You don't understand exactly know what you're up, right and that just creates confusion in people But imagine it tells us we force what actually happens to people They don't have to understand the whole philosophy and they will understand it to different levels So But this is why you have to have the intellectual high ground Because because you have to have the people at the universities and the people commenting on the news and the people Writing doctors in the paper and the people Teaching you know, you have to have them With a deep understanding So that they can then apply it in a variety of ways so that people can absorb it at whatever level They can absorb So when it comes to freedom of speech and particular if say you are getting the lecture and somebody spends up and starts giving their lecture They spend up you are giving your lecture Yeah, wouldn't this make it just impossible for any for anyone you do want to be to get anything across in other words Is there a point in them creating a psyche with three people where it just gets so complicated Which is sort of strike for a For a less free but more reasonably achievable But no because One of the parties there is using force. One of the parties is fringing on the freedom of the other party So I paid for lecture hall or I've been invited to give a talk and somebody's paid and there's an implicit contract When you walk in through that door coming to an AR, you know, uh, iron man, uh, UK event There's an implicit contract And and you know, we could make it explicit, right? That you're you're gonna let the people speak and you're on somebody else's property and they get to set the rules And if you do stand up and disturb Then you will be guided out nicely So freedom of speech doesn't mean again going back to what freedom means freedom doesn't mean doing whatever you want to do it's freedom means again these actions Free of course and you can't cause other people by standing up and not letting me speak your course Right, you can walk out. You can do a lot of things, but you can't stop me from speaking And creating noise at the West. We know there's such a nice noise pollution And you know, you know a lot of play hysteria super high in the middle of the night And there are lots of ways in which sound can infringe on my rights. This is one of them All right, thanks. You want to last question? Okay, I would like your thoughts on preferred pronouns, please Oh god I for the most part I tend to use the pronoun the person wants to wants me to use I'm not in the business of checking out the genitalia and figure out who they are and what they are That's their business. What if it's a word like See her no, I know. I mean that's ridiculous I mean, I that's that's ridiculous But again, I can imagine a context in which was it was I was watching billions have you ever seen billions? Billions is the first time I ever saw Billions is a show on I think showtime Um, it's the first time I ever saw saw if it bogged my because I couldn't I couldn't understand what was going on in the show For a while until I figured out that this one character was trans and and it is required They were they or something like that Um, and and it's like it took me like I think all season just to figure out what the hell was going on because it was so out of now It's like everybody it's it's it's it's in the consciousness. This is how art proceeds What happens in the culture? No, I I think the limitations, but you know, I I know I know an economist who is who I became friendly with and She was you know, she started as a male and now she's a female And I think she's had the surgery and everything and she dresses like a female She looks like a female everything about it and she wants to be You know Treated as a female and I'll call her she absolutely I was living in san francisco until a couple of weeks ago And so I knew a lot of cross-dressers and trans women for some reason. I don't have an issue with calling For men who want to be women She but like zeer and zim and even they Yeah For and they is offensive because they is is instead of you know, it's not singular they is Which is really weird So I don't know even what that means. So I agree with you. I would feel really weird about doing that I haven't really thought it through about, you know, the whole thing but Yes, I mean if you want to be called if you want to be treated as a man or Refer to as a man refer to as a woman. I'm not in the business of of evaluating that, you know, personal, you know exchange Any other kind of pronoun? Yeah, I I've never used I wouldn't know what to do with it if somebody asked me to use it. I would like I it would seems too strange for me, but And this idea that by using a z really what they're trying to do is negate gender To negate that there is such a thing as a gender I mean it's one thing to have a she or he but the whole idea is there is no such thing as she and he We're all Somewhere in the middle. I don't buy it