 I'm going to repeat the questions because if you're going around with one mic, it's going to be a problem. So speak up. Go ahead. Without the mic, it'll take forever to wait for mics. Your opinion? I'd be pretty shocked if you did. Yeah, I feel like selfishness, it bleeds other emotions. Like selfishness itself might not be bad in certain cases. So give me an example. Well, I'm from India, so I can give you the Indian example. Gandhi was actually from a pretty well-off family. If he had been selfish and followed his course as a lawyer in South Africa, India would still be under oppression by the British. And as a product of that, I can only see two outcomes. Either India is oppressed and Indians are oppressed. And the other one is Indians rise up against the British. And then you get violence. I get the point. So Gandhi, a selfish thing for Gandhi to do would have been to continue to be a lawyer and go and make money, be a successful lawyer. But he chose instead of that to do something selfless and to lead the Indian nation to independence in a peaceful way which resulted in lots of good things. And let's just assume that the setup is true. That is that everything is true. I'm not an expert in any industry cycle. And the problem is that the way we've been taught about selfishness is to assume that selfishness equals money. But selfishness doesn't equal money. It equals between the values, the rational values that are going to make your life the best life that it can be. Many people choose to have less money. So I'll give you an example. I got a Ph.D. in finance. I had a job officer in Wall Street. And I had a job officer in academia. Clearly, Wall Street would have made me a lot more money. I would be a millionaire today, many times over. I chose to go into academia. Why? Because I love teaching. I love this stuff, if you can't tell me. I love this stuff. You can't buy this stuff. You can't buy what we're doing right now from my perspective. You can give me millions of dollars. This is what I want to do. I don't want the money. And that to me is no selfish thing I can do. It's not about money. It's about what are your values? What are your rational values? Now, let's say Gandhi. I mean, I don't know Gandhi, so this is imaginary, right? Because Gandhi is not a big selfish. But if you walk a piece of resolution to India, a place where he grew up, where his entire family is, where the people he loves lived, where he is going to live, was more important to him than money. Now, I'm not saying it was a selfish decision, because I don't know what went inside his head, but it could be a selfish decision. Don't associate selfishness with money. Just like Steve Jobs does it only make this. Funny enough, by the way, I get paid for doing this. So I'm not doing it for free. And I wouldn't do it for free. And SFL's not paying me. My institution's paying me a salary. This is my job. I wouldn't do it for free. So I'm still in it for the money. But I'm willing to give up a lot of money to get the pleasure, the fun, of educating monies. Now, some of you think corrupting, but I think educated money. Just like Steve Jobs wanted to make money doing this. But he also didn't want to make something beautiful that wasn't about money. Now, he wouldn't have made. So one of the corrupting influences of this other morality is to make you think of selfishness, not just blind stealing and so being, but money. It's funny. The left, I'll just generalize. Left, Marxism generally, is the most material, money-obsessed group I've ever met. And it's people like you who love capitalism, who love free markets, who care less about money. Money's less important. There's a lot of things more important than money to me. Money's good. A lot of things more important than that. But the left can only think about money. Dialectic materialism, it's called. Not dialectic sputualism or anything like that. Yes. Should I just point to you? I don't know where the mic is. I have a question. And I already have the mic. I have two comments first, and an authority question. My first comment is that since you're already in nature, about 1% of people are born of a sort of perfect type. Unable to feel compassion for other people. They're called psychomass. It seems like the things that they have and their personality corresponds quite a lot with the beside you. Another point that I'd like to make is that the reason was not a great person as everyone would say. She was quite a horrible person who wanted to, if anything, keep the people in poverty forever. So pointing to her as being the pinnacle of good people. No, no, no. I don't think she's a good person. I think the culture thinks she's a good person. She's a horrible person. She has lots of reasons, among others, what you just said. I agree completely. My last comment on my question is that if we're going to try to create a society where we optimise the happiness of people and you see more government taxation as the problem in that. I do wonder why the people of Denmark seems to be so much happier than the people of Somalia. Somalia has virtually no state. The people of Denmark has quite a lot of state. It seems counterintuitive to what you're promoting, that the most regulated and taxed people in the world should be coincidentally the happiest people in the world. Great question. Despite of the insult. Nothing I said excludes compassion. The idea that people who are self-interested and are not compassionate people is something you just made up to devise a storm that was never mentioned. It doesn't even exist. I talked a lot about love. Love involves compassion. There's lots of things that involve compassion. Compassion is a value. One of many values. Compassion does not acquire sacrifice. Indeed, most people who sacrifice like Mother Teresa feel no compassion. Feel no compassion. It's people who are capitalists who feel the most compassion. But let me ask you a question about happiness of the Danes. First, nobody is right-minded. Some people, but they're not right-minded. Nobody is right-minded and uses Somalia as an example of anything good in the world. And certainly, my example didn't say, oh, if there was only no government, everything would be great. I'm a great believer in government. I'm not an anarchist. I never use Somalia as an example of anything good, anything. I believe in government that does things and doesn't really well. It does the protection, the tradition of protection of property rights. It does policing. It does military. Three things that don't exist in Somalia. When those three things are done well, you get happy societies. Like Denmark. We'll get to the welfare part of that in a minute. Like Hong Kong, which has no welfare state, but people are pretty happy, other than with the lack of democracy. It's a piece of the same. But, this is the funny thing about Hong Kong. 70 years ago, 70 years ago, Hong Kong was a fishing village in which about 30,000 to 50,000 people lived. Today, Hong Kong has 7.5 million people. Most people were born in Hong Kong. They came from all over Asia. They risked their lives to come to Hong Kong. They swam. They went to rafts. They went a little boat from all over Asia to come to Hong Kong. Why? Hong Kong had no safety net. Because they had opportunities, because they had protection for property rights, and they could make something of their lives. Now they reach a point where they want to vote too. Good for them, and I support that completely. But, just property rights without a vote. Drew 7 million people into Hong Kong. 7 million people. They never had to vote. Under the British, they still didn't have to vote. They were ruled by a government. And yet, they still flocked to Hong Kong. So it's the property rights that drew them there. Now it's funny about Scandinavians. Scandinavians are happy people. When you go around asking Scandinavians if they're happy, they all say, yes, we're very happy. It's funny, because if you ask Scandinavians in America if they're happy, they say they're even happier than Scandinavians than Scandinavians. It's true. On the other hand, I'm from Jewish origin. I was born in Israel. If you ask Jews if they're happy, they never say yes. Culturally, it's unacceptable. You say no. Good complainers. The studies that measure happiness are so bogus and so funny and so distorted. I mean, really. Even on the level of economic freedom, Denmark, these organizations put out economic freedom indexes, which countries are the most economically free and which are less economically free. Denmark's goes very high. The United States is well below Denmark. The United States is less economically free than Denmark, since Denmark has high taxes. But it doesn't only have high taxes. It has strong rule of law, strong protection of property rights, low regulations. Danish businesses and banks are far less regulated than American ones. And generally, it's more economically free than American. So it's very murky in this world of lots of mixed economies to measure relative economic freedom and relative happiness, particularly when you take into account when you don't control for the million other variables that are going on like culture and social expectations and all these other things. The example of Somalia is good. Nobody's happy in Somalia. Somalia is a disaster by all of our standards. We can agree on that, at least. Next question? Yes. My question would be, do you not see a problem in the tragedy of the commons? Or do you not believe in that? No, I think there is a tragedy of the commons. And the tragedy is that we have commons. How to do it? Commons are not treated well. You saw that when the wall came down 25 years ago between East Berlin and West Berlin. The commons in communism were filthy. It was the most polluted place on the planet. Far more polluted than Western Europe was. That was the first thing that struck visitors when they crossed over to Eastern Europe is how filthy everything was. How polluted everything was. And the reason was it was the commons. There was no private property. The solution to the commons which means private property. Which means, I know, which means you privatize the environment. Put aside global warming for a second. What is the environment other than global warming? Global warming aside for a minute. I'll talk about global warming. I'm not trying to evade the question. I just want to separate it out into units so we can discuss it intelligently. Which is unusual, I know. What is an environmental example? Fish stocks. The best way to deal with fish stocks as people have already started experimenting in Iceland and in Norway pretty collect, pretty social estates is by privatizing them. By creating private units to measure how much you take and you own it. You can trade these units and it's actually solved the fish stock problems and there are other ways in which you can privatize the fish in the oceans. To protect those fish stocks. Give me another example. Fish is elephants. Elephants are becoming extinct in Africa. And then they found a solution. You know what the solution is? Private elephants. No, you won't let me answer, right? So you create private reserves in which the owners have an incentive to protect their elephants from poachers because they make money at it or through organized hunts. But if you hunt an animal and there's profit in it, there's more of that animal to be had. So what's that? Carbon trading. So you're asking about global warming? Yes, when there's a problem. The question is would I be in favor of carbon trading? Because the nice say fish stocks are a form of carbon trading because you've got a fish stock you get a piece of the action if you want, then you can trade it and develop it. Wouldn't I apply that to carbon trading? If I believe carbon was a problem, if I thought the solution was to reduce consumption of carbon even if it was a problem, if I thought the reduction of carbon was the solution, then carbon trading is the right approach to happen. If, if, if, necessarily think it's about not a scientist. I'm not going to make a definitive statement about it, but neither you guys but you guys have been brainwashed into this. 98% of scientists don't believe that so it's another feature of your brainwashing is you believe the 98% of scientists believe this. Every study shows the 98% of scientists do not believe this. But, you know, yeah, right. That's a nice, nice, nice use of man. Let me finish. You can disagree with me. You're going to disagree with me. That's fine. Let me finish. For decades, for decades the environmentalist movement has been feeding us one catastrophic scenario after another. I'm a finance guy. I'm a finance guy. You come to me and you want me to invest. I ask you what your track record is. And if you tell me that every investment you've ever made, you've lost money, I don't invest in you. So I look at the environmentalist movement. I'm not a scientist. I don't know the numbers, right? I look at the environmentalist movement and I study it going back. And I look at what they say about DDT scientists 20 years later said was untrue. I look at what they say about global cooling. Remember, you guys don't remember but some of us do because we're old enough. In the early 70s, the world was going to call front page of the New York Times. All the scientific magazines, 98% of the scientists believed the globe was going to cool. Didn't. In 1968, a famous book came out about Paul Ehrlich, one of the great, great environmentalists that people still worship to this day said that hundreds of millions of people were going to die of starvation during the 70s because of overpopulation. Didn't happen. So when I look at these things, these string of failures, I am skeptical. I'm skeptical of what they tell me next about the end of the world. The end of the world ain't happening. But now I'd love to hear about the successes. But love too sometimes. I've got the catastrophic losses. Let me keep going. Now, let's say, let's say that they're right. Let's say the globe is warming. Let's say it's all true. I'll grant you it all. I'll grant you the carbon that human beings are causing the warming that stopped 14 years ago, for some reason, but 60 years ago. But let's say it's still happening. What's the solution? I can guarantee you one thing that the solution cannot be, should not be, must not be, stop using carbon fuels. Because what that actually means is stop living. You can laugh. Everything around you is made of carbon. Fuel. Of oil. Of natural gas. The plastic of the chairs you're sitting on. This bottle, this cup. Most of the synthetics in your clothes are made from carbon. Most of the stuff in this room is made from carbon. Stop using oil. Stop finding oil. It might as well go back 300 years to when we were all poor. We were all starving. We were all subsistence farming. Children died before the age of 10. Life sucked. Carbon emissions are created while you were finding the oil to create the plastic. What do you think carbon emissions come from? The whole process is about carbon emissions. You know when you stop a mini-carbon? This is where you lose people. You stop a mini-carbon when you're dead. Only time when your footprint is zero. And I guess some people like that. They want us to have a zero footprint. Yes. Yes. I was wondering how you defined coercion. Because in the last part of your lecture you were more or less, you invited governments on coercion since they can actually abort lot of people. But in my opinion I think that money is one important way of coercing on people. So there's an important distinction in my view between two sides of force or two sides of power, political power and economic power. Political power is about guns. It's about grabbing you and moving you somewhere you don't want to go. Economic power is about providing you with values for material. You do not have to buy an apple product. You do not have to buy a phone. You do not have to use carbon fuels. You can go live in the woods. You have, it's your choice to participate or not participate, to trade that is very difficult. And that is not coercion. Money is not coercion. The only way I can get your money is by offering you something that you value more than your money. When somebody sells you bread for two dollars you value the bread for more than two dollars so you will need to trade for it. Nobody coerced you. You chose to use that two dollars to buy the bread. When I offer you an iPhone buyer, you give me your money voluntarily because you want something more valuable to you than that money. So money is not coercion. Money is voluntary and if you are smart about it, money buys you an improved quality of life and improved living standard and that is always the case. You said money is a good thing and my question is about if, I mean the individuals that are always striving to get more money into their bank account and economically be more stable, I think that the capital of the system itself the competition is an inherent aspect of that and that kind of supports the selfishness and striving for your own personal development but isn't there with competition a race to the bottom and with that don't you think a race to the bottom kind of eliminates people and you say that everyone can achieve this economical stability and you know being there but don't you think it's more if you're born or developed in the right uterus then you'll be good economically but otherwise I don't think at university we're all going to be economically good I mean I think that is so let me deal with two aspects of what you're asking one competition is a race to the bottom that's bizarre because in every really competitive market where we leave the market free what happens to the goods that are produced do they get is it a race to the bottom or a race to the top what happens to those goods they get better and do they get cheaper or more expensive they get cheaper so it seems to me that it's a race I'll get to the other part of your question it's a race to constant improvement and rising standard of living because as the goods get cheaper and better more people can afford them more people's lives are better off what about all the incentives like planned obsolescence like what? planned obsolescence the planned obsolescence is a fantasy it's a fantasy so the question is what about planned obsolescence is not a drive to the bottom that's a fantasy how long does one of these last how long does one of these last anybody have anybody have an iPhone 3 anybody have an original iPhone it still works nobody planned its obsolescence it still works the only reason you're not using it is because you don't want to you still want something faster and cooler and cheaper and better nobody's competing for using the old software nobody's competing for using the old you're taking a virtue that people are improving their software and improving computers and turning it into a vice which is bizarre planned obsolescence doesn't exist it doesn't now if it did exist some smart capitalist would say hey guys my product lasts longer than all of your products and I'll sell it a little cheaper and we wouldn't if we didn't want to plan obsolescence we'd all buy it a longer lasting product and he'd get the entire market chain and drive everybody else out of business that's how markets work that is really how competitive markets work not how your fantasy world that your professors teach you works competition drives upward now take capitalism everybody's going to get poorer and poorer and poorer it's true but why isn't it the exact opposite happens before you had capitalism 250 years ago how many people were poor what percentage of the human population lived in poverty before capitalism 99% almost everybody was poor by the standard of poverty 200 years ago how many people today in the west are poor in poverty by the standard of 200 years ago nobody today is a subsistence farmer starving because of the wealth produced by capitalism and we distributed by socialism and it had to be produced first had to be produced just look at the numbers all those people who came to Hong Kong were good poor you know how rich people are in Hong Kong today average wealth in Hong Kong is equal to that in the United States and yet they were all good poor when they came in today they're rich why because they produced because they created because of competition competition drives wealth up drives standard of living up drives quality up and costs down in every single market it's tried and when the reverse happens it's always because of government regulations government price controls next question I'm just following the mic yes we have talked about the welfare state yes welfare state yet so what do you think is supposed to happen to people who just don't make it who don't make it for various reasons why are they supposed to die for the welfare state also in relation to crime so first first the percentage of people who can't make it is insignificant it's tiny I know you laugh because you've never lived in the world capitalism creates more jobs than there are jobs to fill when immigrants came to America in the 19th century with no safety net no redistribution of wealth nothing or to Hong Kong those 7 million who came to the island they all got jobs they all took care of themselves they all found a life they better none of them went to school my ancestors poor Jews came from the middle of Poland they were ignorant they were poor, they were unskilled and they came to the shores of New York and they got jobs and they found a way to make a living and they saved and they sent their kids to school but they rose up by their own effort now there's always a small percentage a tiny fraction of a percent who really can't make it it's tiny a little fraction of a percent I agree what would happen to them well they'd be, they'd get charity you laugh but look at the end of the day somebody who can't make it only has two options they can come and ask me for my help and I'm a benevolent nice guy and if I've got extra money and if I like the person I'm likely to help Americans for example today give $350 billion as well as a year in charity in spite of all the taxes that's a lot of money even in America all they can come to me and pull out a gun and steal my money that's only two options all we do in democracy is pretend that it's not theft because we voted on it so how we turn theft into taxes by voting and consider it moral but theft is theft so if somebody really can't help one another people and in my view he's dependent on other people's goodwill and if we all believe that these people should be helped because I think it's legitimate to want to help them they're human beings after all we do feel compassion after all then we can all get organized and form a charity and give them money but if this guy over here doesn't want to help them you know because he's struggling or because he's got kids to help or whatever reason he doesn't feel like it today it's his right we don't have the will to force him to help them but if we all want to help then we can all help you want to help, I want to help, he wants to help we'll get together, form a charity and give them money it's not hard and it's not a lot of money because there are a lot of people who are so handicapped who are so incapable of taking care of themselves 99 plus percent of the population can work work well enough to take care of themselves I stand of living in mind for you under capitalism than any welfare state could provide them because under real capitalism you get all this innovation all this creativity all this wealth creation you don't just get an iPhone but you get this kind of innovation this kind of motivation this kind of energy into every field of human endeavor and imagine what would happen then right now it just goes into technology why does it only go into technology? because it's the only area we don't regulate but one place where the government doesn't interfere it doesn't control it doesn't tell us what to do and how to do it is this so this is where the innovation happens if you want innovation in healthcare privatize it you want innovation in airplane get rid of the government regulations that are constraining the regulation last innovation in airplane was the concord and we grounded that we killed that where's the next question where's the microphone so just coming back to the small percentage of people who do not make it earlier in the lecture you said that earning money is a great thing we should be very proud of it and it's a very noble thing so I would just like to hear your take on those who cannot make it given by the circumstances not because they're lazy but given by the circumstances what is your take can they not be noble I mean you're obviously trying to be provocative and you're enjoying it let me just say I'm not trying to be provocative I'm enjoying it I'm provocative I don't have to make a big issue to be provocative I believe in everything that I say look there's a difference between people so let's take people in Somalia I mean I think it's a tragedy I think it's sad because the people in Somalia don't have the freedom don't have the physical protection to make the most of their own lives it's sad I am horrified by the lives of people in Somalia it's tragic can they be noble and good they can try yes and some of them are some of them are but their circumstances are such that external forces are destroying their lives can you be are you good when somebody is pointing a gun at you and you're running around the desert trying to stay alive you don't have time for goodness you just are but that's sad that's not the way human beings should live Somalia is not an example of anything now I believe again almost every human being 99 plus percent of the planet is capable of being taking care of themselves and therefore being noble and good and everything else including people in Somalia if they had freedom if they had property rights if they had their physical states protected the reason they are suffering is not because they're not altruistic enough the reason they're suffering is not because it's because there's chaos there's anarchy in Somalia and that's a tragedy but let me say I find it fascinating it just proved to me how well it's a single question not a single question on what it actually means to live a good life what it would take to be happy what it would mean to be a flourishing human being all your questions about how do I help that person over there what about that person over there what about him we live in such a dominant selfless this morality is so ingrained in all of you you can't even think about well how do I take him happy that should be what's really should be a human being what happens to 1% over there mostly they can take care of themselves they don't need your help it's pretty arrogant of you to all think that you can help those people that you know how other people should live how other people should be happy what values they should pursue that's typical western middle class we know and we're comfortable but we're contemplating the fate of Somalis got a Somalia see what it's like but you should be focused on your own lives she has a question about her own life and her own happiness so give her the money too ask to him alright so you're referred to Steve Jobs a lot and certainly it wasn't very innovative but it wasn't that innovative about workers' conditions and the factories where as I once have produced so the questions I want to ask is regarding liberty and freedom certainly liberty and freedom is also a question about the choices you have for yourself and the workers in China certainly don't have a choice between working 80 hours for Apple or dying is that freedom and then to just to take up your criticism so my question is essentially with every political thing is what is your topia what's the world we want to live in and I think the system you're advocating let's say fair capitalism it's happened in the 19th century and that was essentially the situation where people didn't have a choice between working and dying and I think that's not the world we want to live in and it's certainly not the world I want to live in that's right before the 19th century you want to die and you want to take the choice to live from them and that's fantastic right you'd prefer dead people than people who have a choice between death and life I think that bizarre because before the industrial revolution before the industrial revolution how many kids live to see the age of 10 less than 50% what was life expectancy 39 I can get to his question believe me I'll answer in detail we want to live that's exactly what the industrial revolution did it raised the standard of living of all of us you wouldn't be here if not for the last day of capitalism during the 19th century you wouldn't have any wall to redistribute today we'd still be living to 39 we'd still be dying when we were children you think the industrial revolution created child labour what did children do before the industrial revolution they walked up farms and died they went to farms what the industrial revolution allowed them to do is earn enough money so they didn't have to die oh my god what a horrible thing children living we wouldn't want that right so what the 19th century did was allow us to create enough wealth so we as parents could take our children out of the workforce because nobody wants children to work and put them at the schools but before the end of the 19th century before laissez-fait capitalism before we created the wealth of laissez-fait capitalism allowed us to create we were too poor to keep our children home you guys should study just a little bit of history it would be helpful but let me talk about China because I counter to you guys have been to China have talked to those people they love their jobs at apple they love their jobs at apple because the alternative is not death the alternative is not death it's not the farm and living and the socialism the system that you love so much and that system that system well it is because those are the 12 alternatives at the end of the day that system is horrific that system is horrible now you say why don't they just get European-style salaries why don't we just pay Chinese workers what we pay Europeans what because China doesn't have that kind of money it doesn't have that wealth they're not that productive where's the money going to come you guys think the money grows on trees or the government just prints it of course and it just is there right you have to make stuff to get money China over the last 30 years China through this horrible stuff that you described has allowed more people to rise out of poverty than any country in human history during a 30-year period over 400 million people have gone from poverty into middle-class in China we should be celebrating this we should be demonstrating in the streets in favor of more of this more freedom more capitalism some more people can rise from poverty into middle-class before capitalism we were all poor suddenly after the 19th century we're middle-class and rich I wonder what happened in between China China today go to China go to rural China where there's no capitalism where the party is still imposing its socialism and go to Shanghai go to Shenzhen go to Guangzhou go to the cities in which they've allowed economic freedom and see the wealth that they have created see the wealth that Chinese people have created for themselves and you want to criticize these people for the lives that they have made because again you sit in middle-class Europe twiddling your thumbs in a welfare state that survives because you've got some people producing and you can steal their money and give it to others and you've got ancestors who created massive amounts of wealth because they were free and you sit here and you judge Chinese laborers who are choosing a much better life learning a skill advancing in their profession some of them become plant managers and ultimately entrepreneurs who build their own businesses and become rich it's a disgrace literally it makes me so angry because it is a disgrace the West is a disgrace because you want to keep them in poverty let me go back to the CO2 do you know what would happen to the poor in Africa if you guys got your way with CO2 you would institutionalize their inter-poverty they would always be poor because the way to rise up is to go and fuel that's how we get energy so if you ban oil Africans will always be poor but you don't care you care more about the snails than you do about anybody living in Africa if you cared about Africans you would be advocate for capitalism you would want them to burn carbon fuels you would want them to be rich and the only way to be rich the only way to be rich is to make it, produce it, create it and that requires economic freedom that requires burning fossil fuel that requires property rights you should be advocating for Africa if you really care you don't have compassion I care about Africa I beat Africa I beat China I care about them and because I care about them I'm not advocating for capitalism because I want to be controversial because I think it's funny or I think it's cool I advocate for capitalism because I care about human beings I want to see Africa thrive I want to see the unbelievable be productive because you know what, if Africa is productive I'm better off I understand that production is win-win that if somebody else is rich I'm even richer I want everybody to be rich if they can but for that, you need freedom you need property rights you need a produce, you need capitalism Inran's philosophy is the fact that you should follow yourself interest, the perfect man from the fountain head but that self-interest it's not making money it's following your core and being completely true to yourself because now we're acting like she invented laissez-faire capitalism it's a discussion of the two dichotomies isn't it that you should follow your true self and not look at the societies of what they want you to do and that is the pure selfishness not just following money or producing or doing it on the expense of others I'll give you an exam in the fountain head he's an architect and he's about to get this he's a poor architect he has nothing, he's struggling nobody wants to build his buildings and then this bank wants to hire him to build this amazing building give him a lot of money for it and he's all excited because his designs are there however Mr. Royck we want to make changes to your design and he has a whole theory of architecture agree or disagree he believes that it's a modernistic theory and they want to start putting Greek elements into his modern building and he says no but you're going to give up millions of dollars you're going to be rich he says it doesn't matter my integrity is more important to me than money so you're absolutely right and that's what I said before it's about living your life choosing rational values believing in those values producing to take care of yourself he goes to the quarry he walks in a quarry because nobody would hire him as an architect it's about creating a building having integrity being honest being self interested really now it turns out that if you're like that if you're judging your own you don't want people stealing your money and you don't want people telling you how to build buildings that's where the laissez-fait comes in it's only laissez-fait not in the money sense money's just one aspect of it it's in the sense of freedom I want to build what I want to build if I can find other people who are willing to risk their capital and maybe risk constructing the building with me why do we have to have some zoning zaw by the government tell us what kind of building we can and cannot build if I want to create and build a new company start a company tomorrow why can't I just start a company tomorrow where do I have to fill out 20,000 different forms and talk to 10 different bureaucrats and go through a whole thing so it's about doing what is really you and that requires laissez-fait the philosophy's not about she said because she was for self-interest and she was self-interest because she was for reason the reason that the self-interest led to laissez-fait capitalism but that's just an outcome it's not the purpose and it's not the whole philosophy the philosophy is living by your own standards but then why do you think it's misunderstood in this way well because again we're so ingrained with the idea of altruism the idea of a philosophy that says live for others that it's hard for people even to know how to live it in all the questions again about what happens to this guy isn't this good exploitation it's all what your professors are talking about because what's interesting and I know what your professors want because every group I speak to ask exactly the same questions there's no variability and the funny thing is the same style of but this is what our professors our preachers, our mothers, this is what they teach us and it's hard to break away from that instead of my focus in life isn't being happy, isn't being successful what that takes and it's hard I always tell audiences that toughest thing you'll do in your life is be self-interested it's not about women's it's not about whatever I feel like it's about sitting down and really thinking through what are my values what's important to me what do I care about how do I live, what profession should I take how do I pursue that profession who do I love love isn't just random emotion you gotta think about it otherwise you're gonna screw up sometimes so it's about hard work applying your mind to the problem of living which is not easy and it's not trivial talking to people to accept that's what's important in life because they be talking opposites because it's what people carry what people carry nation it should be the end result not the beginning and look the political environment affects us all so I can't live my life to the fullest ability fullest happiness because 50% of my money is taken away from me because the stuff I want to do tells me I can't do it tells me how to live, how to live so I care about love's affair because it restricts my ability to live the best life that I can live that's why I care about it again I don't care about the material stuff I mean I care about that that's how I find you alright so in your lecture you mentioned the 2000 years since Aristotle I'm wondering how come in this 2000 years that the morality of self sacrifice it's just winning it's all this time it keeps on winning and does that imply that people can't think and isn't that a bit of a contradiction that people are able to think and take care of themselves it's a good question it would be sad if they respond for yes it implies that people can't think now look there's a wonderful book The Nation of the Light which inscribes western civilization in terms of a struggle between two sets of ideas that is a Plato versus the idea of Aristotle Plato is the mystic collectivist selfless live for the good Aristotle is the freedom reason individualism right the purpose of morality is eudauminea and the platonists keep winning and I think the main reason in the west for that is religion I think what happened is that very early on religion caught on to this because how do you control people what's the best way to control people well fear is one it's not a very productive one it's a better one, it's guilt that is I tell you this heaven I tell you these are the things you're going to do you can't do the things that I'm telling you to do you have to have it and then you have to guide me so you can get it to happen it's a fantastic system that Inran describes it Attila and the witch doctor got together Attila is the brute, the dictator and the witch doctor is the priest they got together and they devised this and you see it in every culture every culture you guys don't live for yourself live for each other, live for the group by the way only I know what's good for the group so you have to listen to me God knows what's good for the group and you're going to have to listen to the witch doctor and religion dominates our lives unfortunately and certainly Christianity think about the symbol of Christianity I know I'm not supposed to talk about religion can I talk about religion? so think about the symbol of Christianity and I think you want me to answer let me answer the question think about the symbol of Christianity the symbol of whether we're secular religious it's right there it's a man on a cross dying not for anything he did but for our sins the worst possible kind of death that you can imagine that's the symbol we all wear it across we wear it in bracelets we have it in churches but it's a secular symbol it's the ultimate sacrifice and that's virtue, that's goodness that's to be admired no, that's horrible nobody should die for other people's sins you sin, you should suffer for them but that's the symbol we've created and it's so embedded in our culture that once in a while we escape from it a little bit during the enlightenment or spinozo some philosopher comes around and manages to pop his head out a little bit to get us going in a different direction but the thrust of it is so dominant so everywhere again it's a religion and it's been secularized into our philosophies, into our politics into our culture it's everywhere this notion that the purpose of morality is to suffer what a horrible life that would be if that were true the purpose of morality is to live and enjoy and be happy and be successful and thrive that's not Jesus on the cross but that's what we've done in the last 2000 years until a year where Christianity was secularized by thinkers primarily German during the 1960s that's my answer sounds good make them quick questions and I'll try to show yeah well, a quick comment I think as a human biologist I'm a bit disappointed that nobody seems to understand that man is neither an individual nor a grand scale collective being it's a tribal animal man is genetically programmed to be tribal and live in tribes of about 150 people so this is why we're doing great with instinctive drive towards self sacrifice and this is the reason why everybody starts to react very emotionally when you turn or leave the impression that Ayn Rand is a pure single individualist I think that is a big problem with Ayn Rand and the whole theory but evolving from that is that you say that you hope for democracy and in countries where there's not in my experience democracy always leads to growing socialism yeah, I did not mean to say that I'm for growing democracy I believe in constitutional republicanism in a limited democracy where individual whites are protected and where you can't vote to take people stuff away from them you can't vote to silence people like we do today in Europe majorities don't have a right to inflict those kind of things on people so from a pragmatic point of view you're preaching revolution oh, of course I'm a revolutionary I don't think it has to be a military revolution I'd like it to be a peaceful intellectual revolution but yes, I'm a revolutionary my book is called Free Market Revolution and I'm a proud revolutionary you can join me if you want it's a fun cause, it's a good cause to fight for I disagree with your biological character we don't have time to really get into that debate I believe man is ultimately an individualist who benefits from the tribe and the way he interacts with the tribe I mentioned is by trading that's the optimal way, we have reasons so even if we do have certain instincts we can override those instincts through our reason, we can reason ourselves out of those instincts I change my emotions all the time cause I reason differently I used to love this I don't love them anymore because they've shown themselves to be rotten so I love this we all experience changing emotions based on changing ideas, changing evaluations emotions come from my evaluations and I'm not saying there's no genetic there is a genetic influence but I think it's much smaller than most biologists want because they don't understand free will and I think we have the reason capacity to overcome it biologists don't understand free will and I assume you believe it's free will cause otherwise why are we having this debate I just have a small question someone gave you a gun with one shot and you were with your daughter in the room would you kill yourself or does it extreme itself just to know should you act selfishness or not it's a great example it's a silly example in this sense and I'll answer it it's a silly example because that's our life morality is about life, it's not about life boats lightboat scenarios is a distortion of ethics it's how they teach I know that's how they teach ethics today but it's the whole point of it is to tell you that ethics is not relevant to your own life ethics is about how you choose your career ethics is about how you choose your friends and how you choose your loved ones ethics is about what you do after you walk out of here and how important you how serious you take your own life and your own mind and your own ability that's what ethics is about if you do an alternative and I can think of a more realistic alternative somebody gave me a gun whip on bullet my child is drowning in a river and to save it I'm going to drown but would I jump in and save the child of course I would it's my child if it was your child and I was passing by I might not because I'm selfish it's my child the value is the people I love I don't want to live in a world where I didn't try to save my kid I'd rather die I think suicide is completely selfish under certain circumstances given how high the value my child is to me I would save it take the bullet if you want but I wouldn't do it for your child necessarily you know it's not my I'd like to come back to those that cannot make it in the ideal world of course either you say they're safe by us because it makes us happy to save them but you also say they're only taught selfishness as the ideal as the one value we only have left so it wouldn't make me happy anymore to save anyone wouldn't it yeah it's a great last question because this just proves my entire thesis it's great oh you care I mean this again what you should care about is your life your happiness why would a selfish person ever help another person that's the question you know if I see in my backyard if I see a plant that's about to die I'm going to water it you know why? because I love life I love life the philosophy of self-interest is a philosophy of love it's about loving life your life primarily but life generally we love animals we love cats we love dogs we love all kinds of things when you see a dying animal inside the street you try to help it you don't want to see stuff die because you're a human being who loves that's why it helped this person now because I don't make me happy it wouldn't make me happy but it would be a positive a little bit of positive in my life it doesn't make me moral what I do for myself is what makes me moral but it doesn't is not hurting me either and yet it fulfills my love of human beings of the fact that their life is a bad human being if I knew they were a nasty person I wouldn't help I wouldn't let them go out but if I don't know them I'm benevolent I'd assume better of them and if I did know them they were good they wouldn't be part of my life so this is the whole notion of self-interest being cold unpassionate unloving uncaring no compassion is a straw man it doesn't exist really selfish people people who really care about their life value their life so much recognize the value of life so much that they love all life to some extent not willing to share with other people but voluntarily and out of real compassion not force not fake compassion not guilt driven compassion would everybody be saved I don't know but I'm not worried about that I'm worried about living making the best of your life and that problem is such a marginal problem the whole problem of those people who can't is such a marginal problem not only that the amount of wealth we create I mean the amount of wealth we create in this mixed economy shambles that we have that we call the west today with economic growth of zero to one percent is pathetic if we have three economy we'd be making so much wealth that the little bit to help people would be nothing nothing we're poor we're good poor as compared to that parallel universe over here that doesn't have a welfare state thank you