 And what a better episode to start our experiment with Finland with then we have as our eighth guest of the spillover podcast Very honored to have you here. Dr. Yaren Brooke from the Einran Institute. Great. Happy to be here. Yeah, welcome. Thank you I guess first off Not a lot of people especially here in Finland, they don't know This is these are ideas that we don't don't get to hear here in Finland Basically not at all this and so maybe start out by explaining who is Einran What is objectivism and well, who are you? Who am I I'm just a just a voice Representing representing Einran so yes So let me start by who is Einran and then we'll kind of circle back to who I am because I think it'll be clearer once We know who Einran is. I mean Einran was was born in in Russia in 1905 to a middle-class Jewish family so she was born Alicia Rosenblum and she Witnessed the Russian Revolution and and its consequences Her father who was a middle-class owner of a pharmacy The pharmacy was nationalized taken away from him. There were part most taken away from me everything you've read about what happened When the communists took over happened to Einran and and she was she was a teenager But she was what she even at that age rebelled against it and it was clear to her that this was wrong that this was Bad for her life and and she sought out the earliest opportunity to escape and There was a little window in the early 1920s where you or the late 1920s where you could get out and You could get a visa to the United States and to go study or to go do research and She took it and she got out and you know the visa was supposed to she was supposed to go back But everybody knew her family knew she would never go back, right? She would never go. She knew She was 22 years old and she knew that if she stayed She would be killed and there was no question. She was an independent voice She stood up for herself and at university that was just unacceptable So she she came to the United States with nothing With this idea that she wanted to become a writer and particularly she she was very interested in movies She had watched movies in Russia and she'd fall in love with American movies and she wanted to get into the movie business So she shows up in Hollywood one day With a with a letter of introduction from a cousin in Chicago and she goes into the studios of Cecil B. DeMille I don't know who Cecil B. DeMille was but I was very familiar. Yeah. Yeah So at the time was the greatest producer of movie silent movies and Very famous Cecil B. DeMille studios and yet his own studio company in those days and and you know They told her don't call us, you know, we'll call you kind of a brush off Yeah, and she's walking out of the studio and there's a there's a big convertible with Cecil B. DeMille sitting in their thing Driving by and she's staring at him this little Russian woman with these big eyes and she's staring at him He stops the car and he says why are you staring and she says and she tells him the story You know, she grew up in Russia and she advised his movies and she can't believe she's meeting him And he says get in the car it gets in a car and he says well If you want to be in the movie business, you need to know how movies are made And he takes it to the back lot where they're filming the King of Kings the story of Jesus Yeah, and he says here's a pass for a week to be an extra on the movie and indeed She's an active if you there's a there screenshots where we can find her as an extra on the movie And she lands up meeting her husband on this on the set and she lands up This is lands up being the first job among many many small little jobs that she has in Hollywood She works in the wardrobe department. She works in all kinds of things basically Building up her knowledge of English and she's writing in the evenings and she's doing that and she lands up writing a Novel called we the living which describes life in the Soviet Union Which doesn't do well at all in the 1930s in America because in the 1930s in America most intellectuals Mother's sophisticated intellectuals are commies. Yeah, they're communists. So they don't want it They don't want a book that describes the evil of communism. Yeah, we the living is the most autobiographical book of all her novels Was the book any good though or was it well written? It's I think it's very well written and it's it's it's I think everybody should read it. It's it's one of the great one of the greatest indictments of What communism is really about so not on a mass scale in terms of the slaughter of millions of people? Yeah, as you would read in the history book, but what it does to the human soul What it does to the human spirit how it destroys the best within us You know say destroys ambition it destroys achievement it destroys Rational decision-making basically it it relegates the human the human being to Doing what they're told to to authority, right? Yeah So so communism and all authoritarianism because the book is ultimately an anti-authoritarian book is isn't it's an it's a book against the idea of Authoritarianism and collectivism and you as an individual is just a mindless roots Which is which is the way authoritarian regimes always treat the individual what's interesting about the novel one of the interesting things about it is in 1940s in Italy during Mussolini's reign an Italian director decided to make a movie of We The Living and Didn't get permission from a mind rand just went ahead and made it in fascist Italy and Mussolini didn't mind Because he thought it would be an anti-communist movie so he let the movie go he let the movie be made and the movie was made and it opened in in in Italy and Suddenly and I think Mussolini got a copy and he sent it to Goebbels In in Altea Germany now and Goebbels watches the movie and immediately calls up Mussolini and says you're crazy This movie isn't anti-communist this movie is anti-authoritarianism You've got to stop it so they collect all the copies of the movie and they burn them Yeah, right under Mussolini's orders and Goebbels is orders turns out one copy was saved and it was discovered in the 1960s and I ran gotta watch it and They they made subtitles to it and you today can get it I think it's a Netflix, but it's get the DVDs of it and I think it just came out on Blu-ray Okay, and it's fabulous. It's it's it's one of the top directors in Italy at the time It's filmed in a wonderful, you know, Italian style It's got Anita Valley who's this amazingly beautiful Italian actress plays the lead role and It it depicts what life was like for a young woman growing up When communism came into being and how again it destroys the human soul So if you don't want to read the novel at least watch the movie and the movie's excellent The movie's excellent where's other iron-band novels turned into movies are not great. This one's a great movie All right. Anyway, so she makes the movie the living and it does okay But it doesn't do great because because the critics are so left it Then she writes she writes a Play that does well on Broadway and does what so she kind of is making it in Hollywood She writes screenplays ultimately she writes a little novel that called anthem can get published in the United States, but gets published in Britain because it's it's a it's a dystopian Little book and and the British like dystopian like think 84 an animal farm Well, and them cuz I just a little before 1984 and there's good reason to believe the JoJo while read anthem Yeah before he wrote 1984 and that it impacted kind of bit Anthem in my view is much better than 1984 because it actually shows the way out of the dystopian future of 1984 is basically just description, right? Well, and the ending is just okay. This is it. It's bleak It's like there's nothing nothing good comes up, right? So then she writes a book called the fountain head which is published in 1945 12 publishers rejected Right, and then finally the 13th publisher accepts the book They publish a small quantity because they don't think it'll do be it do any well It sells word of mouth it sells Immediately all the copies and it becomes an instant bestseller and to this day the fountain head is one of the best-selling books Ever it sold millions of copies and it still sells about a hundred thousand copies a year to this day That was 1945 1957. She she publishes a magnus opus at the shrug Atlas shrugged now because of the fountain hit success publishes bid for it They compete to publish it. It's published. It's an instant bestseller and again to this day It put it it it sells hundreds of thousands of copies isn't that the most well-known book though a fine round It's a well-known book today. It's her most well-known book. It used to be the fountain head both are very well-known No in the United States both sell very well Am I correctly saying it's the second highest selling book ever? No, no, no That's not true. I mean if I don't know a Tom Clancy or some best-selling author That sells many more books that's millions of books, you know if you sell a little romance novel or Thriller, but you know what you're referring to is a survey that was done in the early 1990s where I think CEOs of large companies were asked what was the most influential book in their lives and it came number two after the Bible But yeah, it's not it's not the kind of thing. I like to cite because You know you guys in finance or studying economics or whatever Statistics It's easy to lie using statistics of the survey Absolutely is meaningless. Why is it meaningless because they let's say they serve it a hundred people now Well 85 of them said the Bible now five said Atlas shrugged and then one or two said other books right but 85 versus five, right? Yeah, it's the second most influential, but it's it's it's not a meaningful number now I will say that Atlas shrugged if you did survey today The top successful entrepreneurs and business leaders and finance guys in the United States I think you'd find that almost all of them have read Atlas shrug Yeah, I think you'd always also find that almost all of them will say it influenced their lives positively That it had a significant impact on why they are successful So it's an incredibly powerful Incredible meaningful book to most I'd say most successful Businessmen entrepreneurs if you go to Silicon Valley Everybody's read Atlas shrugged if you go to Wall Street, everybody's read Atlas shrugged if you go to fortune 500 industrial companies Everybody's read Atlas shrug. You know, it's it's not an accident that in the Trump cabinet The businessman in the cabinet all say Atlas shrugged is their favorite book because It's had a profound impact on business It should be read by every business student every economic student. It should be in the curriculum Every business school in the country. It's in the curriculum of some business schools in the US But not everyone but but because we'll get to why it's controversial, but because it's so controversial Most business school excluded most universities excluded. Anyway after she published Atlas shrug I meant spend the rest of her life from 1957 until 1982 when she died Writing nonfiction writing philosophical essays writing about the world and really in Atlas shrugged And to some extent in the found head but in Atlas shrugged very explicitly and then later in essays She developed her own philosophy. She discovered a philosophical system cause she called it Objectivism and So she is both a novelist and a philosopher Objectivism is a very original. I think profound Incredibly important philosophical system That really has something to say about almost every philosophical question that has been raised over the over the century She's one of the very few Philosophers in human history who's really developed a comprehensive system not just you know Like like John Locke is famous about his political philosophy or some people are famous in epistemology, but she's Famous in a kind of in terms of presenting a comprehensive philosophical system, but it's very controversial because it upends a Lot of the philosophical Teachings of the last 200 years It is much more in the tradition of Greek philosophy than it is in the tradition of much of Western philosophy She would definitely she is she would definitely is the enemy of continental philosophy She rejects You know, she views German woman German idealism German romantic philosophy of The late 18th century and through the 19th century as the destroyer of the modern world is as the enemy of human life Is is really bad? She is much more figure in the traditionally lightment of the French and the Scottish enlightenment But even there she challenges the Scottish enlightenment certainly on the issue of religion She challenges the the the French and the rest of the enlightenment on the issue of morality She basically is upending the whole Judeo-Christian tradition in ethics and morality and she's challenging The very nature of epistemology the very nature and how we know she challenges primarily I'd say the continental philosophy and how we know and then human knowledge show In in in both ethics and her epistemology she Hawkins back to Aristotle But she's a she's a much more developed version so she would consider herself in an Aristotelian tradition. Yes, as opposed to the the Platonian Tradition of having having leaders who who interpreted the world for you and it's sort of a there's a parallel to to the To the Christian reform where Luther came and said you you have direct access to the Bible instead of having these mediators That's right, absolutely and and and and Luther definitely is a is an important force within Christianity or within Western civilization because he Rejects the idea of authoritarian control over knowledge Yes, that the Pope has access to God and therefore has access to knowledge of truth and we don't but he says no every individual has But you see Luther still saying that the truth comes right from revelation the truth comes from access to God and from revelation from God and Iron man rejects that as Aristotle did so. Yeah, I know and viewed In a sense, so first of all I'm reviewed History is being shaped by ideas So what what really shapes the history of the world are the fundamental ideas the ideas that the people primarily intellectuals hold in every Every epoch in history and and she views all of Western history as a Battle between two philosophers Basically Plato and Aristotle. Yeah a battling it out Plato's vision of the world as The philosopher king that the philosopher really who has access to knowledge that's in a different plane Yeah, that the world of forms that only certain people have access to they see the light the rest of us live in a cave and we only see shadows and Therefore we are completely dependent for knowledge for truth on the philosophers who access The light who access the world of forms now and as a consequence we need political leaders were authoritarian who tell us what to do Because what do we know we're too stupid right to actually know anything versus our starter who says no human reason rationality Every human being has the faculty of reason and as a consequence every human being has has access to the truth Has access to reality therefore every human being can guide his own life He doesn't need the authority to guide it and therefore it's much more of an individualistic political system that leaves Individuals to determine their own fate to determine their own lives And if you think about this battle going on in Western civilization, you can really see Christianity certainly in its early manifestation is In in it's it's Augustinian phase if you will is pure Plato No, right, and that's why you need a pope to commune and you need priests in order to give you and tell you what the truth is The individual counts for nothing the individual is living in a cave who knows nothing And and it doesn't have really Okay, so you're losing you're losing power. Yeah, all right So the individual the individual in that sense is meaningless what what is important is You know religion is this other world of forms this other dimension, right? And you see that really through the Renaissance and then in the Renaissance. What's it a Renaissance of it's a Renaissance of Greek thinking Yes, it's a Renaissance of Greek identity, but primarily what grease it's primarily the grease of Aristotle because the grease of Plato is Embedded into Christianity it's embedded into the epistemology and into the morality primarily into the The authoritarianism of Christianity so with the Renaissance you see the rise of Aristotle and now reason and and logic and rationality now originally as Plays out in the scholastic right tradition within Catholicism and but but it's rationalistic the text from reality using logic in order to explain God But but ultimately it breaks free of that and you see it in you see it in the arts So for example in the dark ages what you see a gargoyles What you see is is ugly depictions of human beings suffering right because that's life life is what it Hobbes call it Short nasty and brutish right, but that's life life under the dark ages is short brutish and nasty And and the artist depict that because they view of man is is a decrepit It's the Christian view of man of a sinner from from you know of original sinner from the beginning We are sinners where we're nothing we're meaningless creatures now and this earth is a sinful earth And this is Luther and the Catholic Church This is a horrible existence We live on this earth and then you get the Renaissance and suddenly people discover Greece and it discover a vision of a heroic man right of Man is a heroic being of individual and you get Michelangelo's David Yeah, or even Michelangelo's pietà where Jesus is dying, but but think of what a Jesus he is right? He's a muscular efficacious Heroic Jesus with a weeping Mary who's really crushed by the death of her son. No sits. It's very secular It's a very secular pietà So that is the Renaissance. It's a rediscovery of Aristotle and the the peak of that that the real In history the The peak of this revival of Aristotelian think is really the enlightenment the alignment where John Locke says use an individual have Individual rights use an individual own your own life and the purpose of the state is to serve you It's to protect you it's to defend you as an individual, but the the moral and political Entity that is of significance is the individual individual Yeah, so that's a revolution and and so Locke and then the founding of America Which is the manifestation of Locke and political theory and really a Manifestation of Aristotle's view of man because what is what is the declaration did man and say it basically says all the Whole idea of America basically says you individuals you can take care of yourself You can live your life the state is here just to protect you Go go flourish go go succeed in life So so the enlightenment is this this Aristotelian epoch and then then you get as a rebellion against the enlightenment kind of Play-Doh rearing his ugly head Back in the form of Emmanuel Kant and what Kant says is No guys reason is not efficacious Reason doesn't actually tell us anything about reality reason is just in a sense the mind Creating reality it's it's not seeing reality indeed our mind is stored to reality We're seeing what is embedded in our consciousness of the primacy of consciousness reasserts itself That's the idea of transcendental idealism and in Kant. Yes, and but there's a Isn't it isn't a bit of a mischaracterization to say that he he maybe I'm sure he puts less value on on on Rationality on reason then say Rand no he redefines reason and this is the danger It's not that he puts he the problem is that he puts a lot of emphasis on reason But in a wrong definition of reason of a reason detached from the real world Yeah of a reason detached from the reality that it's observing now, right? So what is reason reason is is a faculty that observes and integrates Reality that the facts of reality. Yeah, the concretes that are out in reality But if what reason is observing is not reality what what is observed is Idea space is is the ideal as as created by our own minds now We're returning to a platonic kind of world where reason we all don't have access Yeah, and now you need so for example, how do we know what's right and what's wrong? Well, we have categorical imperatives. Well, we do those come from they're just there Concepts, but they're not now. So so how do we find them? Well, as an evolution from Khan Khan doesn't say this explicitly But if there's a little evolution for card ultimately We need somebody to tell them what the cat tell us what the categorical imperatives are and it turns out that arian race has different Categorical imperatives than the Jews But how does the how does the arian race know what those categorical imperatives are? Well, they need a fewer to be able to commune with the arian race You know in a sense the world of forms in order to tell all of us what we must do as arians in order to fulfill our categorical imperatives and and of course the Jews are different because they have different Categorical imperatives and we can we can view them as evil and therefore it's okay to kill them all right so Kant in that sense Rand believe leads directly to Hitler not in the sense that Kant is a fascist and you know Because his political philosophy he doesn't articulate the case for fascism But in his epistemology in his moral code he laid in his idealism in his is Transcendental ideas right it transcends reality and in his moral code based on category Comparatives not based on real reason on reason attached to reality. He sets the stage For the whole chain the whole philosophical chain of Hegel Schopenhauer Marks Nietzsche and then their political manifestation in Hitler so that is all Plato reasserting himself through Kant and That we are living the 20th century was very much a Platonic era, but but where the battle is still way, you know waging and and where America still represented our startle But of course that too is fading, but but she has this unique perspective of because ideas shape history These are the fundamental ideas and then she would place herself Squirrely on the Aristotelian side pro reality a is a reality is independent of our consciousness Reason is the faculty that observes and integrates reality and and you know We have this faculty that allows us to abstract from concrets and reality create abstractions But but what's unique, you know, so so who epistemology is very unique She she and she did she builds on Aristotle to to talk about the objectivity of knowledge and how knowledge is objective and then beyond that she goes to morality Because reason is ultimately a fact of the individual. It's not a collective thing. There's no collective consciousness There's no collective reasoning only individuals can reason She views the individual as What's you know individuals are live individuals eat individuals think so individuals are what a important morally and She is a rational egoist so she believes that self-interest is is the goal of morality morality Should be should be the study of the values and virtues that lead to a good life again Somewhat like Aristotle's flourishing where you study what leads to a good life And she would say the good life is is based on The what is required for human beings to survive and to thrive as human being and what's the number one thing? That allows people to thrive and survive. It's the thing. It's it's to use our mind. It's to be rational So for who rationality but you don't mean virtue. Do you don't think that? Objectivism is like the philosophy for the 21st century if Plato was more the 20th century or so before that well I certainly hope it is. Yeah, I Believe it is. I believe it's the philosophy for every century it's the right philosophy and I think that it is gaining ground and I think and I hope that in the 12th 24th century becomes a dominant philosophy That's at least the goal my goal and the goal of the iron man Institute is to make Objectivism the dominant philosophy in the world in the 21st century that the most important secular philosophy in the world and and you know, you're seeing a lot of interest in a philosophy Globally now whereas it used to be just in the United States I think because of the internet and because of the the scale that the internet allows ideas to spread in Completely new ways, right? We're doing this now right now Anybody in the world will be able to listen to this and watch this at the marginal cost to us of exactly zero Exactly, and and that's unprecedented. That's bigger than good and books printing presents. It's bigger than anything Yeah, so I think because of that you there's an opportunity to get her philosophy to become a global philosophy and I do think that she is the philosophy of the 21st century I also think that I in man is ultimately The first American philosopher really the only American philosopher, so even though she was born in Russia Well, we're Russell say oh, he's English. He's English But what would James do we say I would say James do he is one of the destroyers of American philosophy or you know I'd say that the American philosophers that the pragmatists those are the only really American philosophers before in man They are all set to destroy the project of the founding fathers Not to defend it. I'm ran is the first philosophy in America Whose philosophy really is a hundred percent consistent with the founding of America I mean if you read the Declaration of Independence in particular, but the Constitution as well properly understood They are completely consistent with I'm ran's philosophy But what she does is that the founders the founders of America had a great political philosophers They really understood political philosophy, but they were they were they were very conventional and that means Christian in their morality So their morality was so so let's think about what Christian morality is Christian morality or morality of most of the of the last 2,000 years in the West is a morality of Selflessness, so when we think about what is the good? What is moral? What is just? We think about being selfless. We think about self-sacrifice Mother Teresa is ideal morally. Why because she gave up a middle-class life She gave up going to school like you guys do she gave up making money. She gave up being successful Flourishing right and she chose a life of suffering and if you read her diaries you realize she suffered she didn't have fun right and Dedicated life to helping other people Not even helping other people succeed helping other people not die not die yeah not die because she didn't believe in Success means she really the meek shall inherit the earth and therefore she she wanted to stay poor Yeah, but she didn't want them to die because suffering was good suffering was virtuous She wanted them to explicitly wanting to stay poor Yes explicitly wanting to stay poor and explicitly wanting them to suffer and she Suffered and she believed that God wanted us to suffer and that this was the purpose of life was suffering And and that is why she is viewed as a saint because she is all of me I mean think about it often say in my lectures have you ever seen a painting of a smiling happy saint? No, because the whole point of sainthood is to suffer and die. Yeah, right so sacrifice suffering is Diverture What I meant is saying is no Life is to be lived Life is to be enjoyed. Yeah, the purpose of life is to be happy It's to achieve you domineering as the children terms. It's achieved human flourishing and it's it's it's That's what Ethics should guide us towards we should we should philosophy should educate us about virtues that lead To flourishing to success right so She challenges this ethic that even the founders had and I think that the end-to-end America Was founded on a conflict a political philosophy that says that every individual has an Able right to pursue his own happiness Versus a morality that says that the moral duty is like in Kant To sacrifice to be selfless right now so content philosophy This is before Kant but confident philosophy Christian philosophy dominates the ethics so America was founded on a quicksand The quicksand is the morality of Christianity What I ran does is she takes the political philosophy of Locke and the founder now and Grounds it on a morality and epistemology that are solid that have real Foundations and and in that sense she is a philosopher of America And I think it's why she's most popular in America because her ideas resonate with the kind of spirit of the American people And I think the fact that she's doing so well internationally now Suggest to me that that's spirit of freedom of individualism is now becoming much more global Yeah, I'd like to I'd like to go back to the young part the ideas of I ran very well And you highlighted which is one of the main tenets that one of the great Fundamental ideas behind objectivism is this upholding of reason as the as the main vehicle to interpret truths from from reality basically and I'd like to challenge that a little bit sure and There's this I mean there's a big a big debate in in economics between classical economics and behavioral economics Yeah, basically a behavioral economics based I think mainly on the research at least very greatly based on the research of Daniel Kahneman and a muster ski In the book thinking about this law. You're very I'm sorry. You're very aware of this and and also I mean and Just a short just a short summary so that people know what we're talking about the book thinking fast as slow basically Daniel Kahneman and a muster ski Define the human brain as having two systems system one and system two system one being our main mode brain mode and Where where the reactive brain the intuitive brain the feeling brain the the brain of habits And then the system two brain, which is the the brain mode that requires effort requires It's the rational thinking brain. It's it's our reasoning faculties Basically a scientific mapping of how our how our reasoning abilities work And then even before that If we if we go way back to when I'd say Rationality started flourishing in in modern philosophy with Francis Bacon with the scientific method In novus organum when he wrote it in 16 Doesn't matter 1600s. Yeah. Yeah He even he mapped out these the idols of the mind basically four idols of the mind which were these four Four categories of different fallacies Different preconceived notions things that people have in their minds that they can inhibit scientific reasoning. So these And Maybe making this distinction between people who might oppose ran might say that yes humans certainly Are Reasonable they have rationality. Of course, it'd be it'd be not only wrong But disrespectful to our to our advances human as a species to say that we don't have yeah Reasoning capabilities because that's that's the way we advance and our welfare growths, etc But that there are limitations and there are other forces in play that we just cannot ignore as as human beings that have evolved Yeah, I mean, there's no question. There were other forces in play But the fact is that all human knowledge Quant knowledge comes from reason right all human advancement all human achievements come from reason And So so let's take this uh fast versus slow, right? So the idea is the fast brain is intuitive. It's emotional. It's quick And the slow brain is rational thought out. Well Where did where do these come from right? So Iron man would argue that ultimately it is the slow brain the rational the the in thoughtful people That commands the fast brain that is for example One of the things that that colman talks about is is the ability of the fast brain to to get Things very very quickly and to discover patterns very very quickly and to know stuff very very quickly And the slow brain it takes it a while to catch up in a sense, right? But why does that happen? It happens because the slow brain has trained Right, so we have trained our brain to see certain patterns over and over and over again So somebody's playing the violin doesn't have to think about playing the violin because they practice 10 What is it the 10,000 hour rule and it becomes intuitive the intuition is a consequence of training our brain Using the slow methodology and the only way now If we don't do that if we rely just on the intuition now the intuitions are there the emotion is there Even if we don't use reason to train it But what happens is if we rely on that we screw up we screw up right and and and he shows this right So so all our cognitive biases Are all fast brain cognitive biases, right? Yeah in a sense their emotions and and rand would say I think That yes if we default on thinking If we don't use reason Then we're at the mercy Of emotions, right and that places at the mercy of cognitive biases the whole point of Studying what those cognitive biases are is to use our slow brain to overcome the biases To use our slow brain to say wait a minute I'm not going to make a quick decision because I know I have certain biases And and that are emotional And I'm now going to try to overcome those biases by slowly using logic and using rationality To guide my life and people who rely on the emotions to live their life Screw up. I mean you tell this to most people and they say absolutely when you screw up It's usually because you didn't think it through When you screw up, it's usually because you've you've let your emotions dominate you No, and and what rand is saying is no Decision should be based on reason. Yeah, unless you don't have time Unless you have to make a quick decision and then you make the quick decision based on your intuition Or if it doesn't matter the emotion or if it doesn't matter, but but every other decision Should be based on reason. I mean even something that has deep emotional grounding like Who to marry which is clearly guided by an emotion of love. Yeah, you shouldn't Act on that emotion of love to the extent of kind of committing yourself to the rest of your life Unless you understand where it comes from unless you have validated it if you will through reason Did you understand? Okay. Yes, this person I love really is a good person And I love them for the right reason not the wrong reasons Then go ahead and commit long term But if you're not sure where this love thing is It might go away or it might turn out that you love them and it's not really there what you think you love them for So even when Something like love which is a powerful emotion a strong emotion emotion. You should cherish and live by You still have to validate it through reason if you're going to act on it Particularly if you're going to commit to it a long term So at the end of the day what rand is saying is when you make decisions particularly important decisions Reason is your guide because the fact is that reason is cognition Emotions are not cognition Emotion are quick instinctual responses to stuff Usually based or always based on decisions Conclusions you made sometime in the past Right. So emotions are not independent of thought. There are consequences of thought, but they're subconscious. Yeah So you might not know where your emotions are coming from They might be based on decisions or conclusions you came to for example when you were very young Before you were really fully reasoning capability and if we had a rational psychotherapy, right? If we had rational psychology, which I don't think we really have but if we had such a science Then it really is the science of trying to understand What kind of conclusion lead to what kind of emotions and how do we undo? Bad conclusions we came to when you were young that are resulting in bad emotions. So if you have a fear of flying Maybe at some point you came to some conclusion about heights or about flying or about whatever. How do you undo that and and That's not easy to do, but that's what psychology should be the science of so Rand wouldn't deny The cognitive biases of the emotion or the the kind of intuition But she would say a it's not clear that it's cognitive biases, you know, because it's not clear there's cognition going on there But they clearly are biases But then the wall of reason is to help us overcome those biases the wall of reason is to study them to understand them And then to make the right kind of decisions But to your but to your example about marriage If you think about the divorce rates, is it done? Could you say that most people are unreasonable, but you should push towards being more reasonable? Yeah, no, but look most people we're not taught to be reasonable. Yeah No, nobody teaches us That what's most important in life is to think now, I don't know about the Finnish education system Which is supposed to be the best in the world. So so so maybe they do teach it in Finland way public I know we can talk about that Just because it's the best in the world doesn't mean it's good. Okay, which right, which is the difference, right? And and I would argue even in Finland. It would be much better if it was private Looking forward to hearing that but the the the what we should be teaching kids is critical thinking skills It's how to think and how to think about The world not to just think an abstraction Detached from reality, but how do you really use reason? and But more importantly than that what we don't teach people to do Is the importance of thinking to their own lives? Because we don't teach them that their own lives are important We teach them that other people's lives are important So we teach them that they should sacrifice that they to live for other people I mean my mother taught me to be selfless That's what most mothers teach us because that's what the priests teach and that's what the philosophers teach But imagine a world in which we taught kids to be selfish, but but but properly selfish Which means rationally selfish, which means therefore they had to think before they acted they had to be They had to use cognition. They had to use reason Only when you use reason only when you use your rational faculty Can you be truly selfish? But imagine if if we kept when little kids we always told them think think think or stop before you act Think about that emotion Figure it out solve problems. That's what life is about. Then maybe people would think before they got married Would think before they did a lot of stupid things that people do They would think before they elect the stupid leaders we we tend to choose in in politics They would think before they did anything. I think the world would be a completely different place So her point is not That people are rational period. Yeah The point is that people can be rational But rationality requires effort right rationality is an achievement Rationality is something that people need to strive to it's not easy to be rational It's not easy to be rational and in the sense that it's not easy to be rational It's not easy to be selfish So I in Rand would be say to be self interested to be an egoist In her sense of the word yeah, it's hard work because it requires you as your primary virtue to be rational Right to seek reason as your primary value that isn't easy So if you want to be selfish, she says think think think don't act on emotion, right? And that's an achievement to to to strive to And and yes divorce rates. I think are one of the indications. Well, there are two things going on one It's an indication that a lot of people are not being rational But it's also an indication that it's hard that is to make a decision about who you want to spend the rest of your life with Is a very very hard decision And it it doesn't surprise me and I don't think it should surprise anybody That we're not you know that it's hard to make a decision about the next 50 years of our life And most of us make mistakes about it. It's not always lack of rationality. It's just mistakes and the fact is that people You know when they get married are maybe different than 20 years later when they've maybe have different values and have grown apart Now I've been married 34 years So so I made a right decision But I wouldn't say that it's because I made a rational decision back then I I tried to I mean it to some extent I got lucky to some extent You know we grew up together because we got married so young and to some extent It's because not just when we were married Did we choose to be rational but that our lives are being guided by a particular philosophy So we've we've grown up together on the same path because it was on the same philosophical path um When you get married and you don't have clear values and virtues It's much more likely that you would grow apart because your values and virtues You know here in my case we grew up with the same values and virtues because we explicitly identified a philosophy That we shared right at the beginning Can we impact the idea of the rational self-interest a little bit because it's it's especially selfishness is a word with plenty of connotations Yes, and people might not have uh, have a clear understanding like mainly even when I encounter I'm not sure if you would consider yourself libertarian But whenever you talk to libertarians who are randian and they they uh express the idea of rational self-interest or selfishness. It's always uh The main the main the source of the main source of information is usually the the Well The opponents who misunderstand usually or at least characterized by the the Randias themselves misunderstood. So I'd like to hear from you personally Uh, what what is the uh, what is the role first of all? I think well defines rational self-interest and what is the role of altruism in such a system sure So you have to define both irrational self-interest and altruism Because because part of the confusion is the definition of altruism, which is which is I think most people hold the wrong definition of altruism Rational self-interest is viewing Your own interest as primary your own life is is is your own flourishing is your goal Your moral goal in life So it's it's living in order to achieve your personal happiness and personal success now That is not subjective or doing whatever you feel like doing as we've discussed to this point, right? Figuring out what is going to be good for me over the next 50 years Figuring out on any given decision. What is going to be good for me? What's going to be bad for me tomorrow? Never mind 10 years and 20 years for now is not easy and it requires Thinking thinking thinking so if you wanted to boil down iron rands egoism or selfishness to one term it's think Right, that's the commandment if you will. It's not a commandment. It's a right think Figure out what's going to be good for you. So in that sense, it's not about doing what feels good in the moment It's about what's really good. What's objectively good for you over the long run So if there's a line of cocaine here, right? Clearly if I sniff it, it's gonna make me feel good, right? I'm gonna get a high But I also know rationally that semi-guitars probably not good for me in the long run You know, I could easily get addicted to it while I'm high. I might do stupid things I certainly will probably say stupid things be a good podcast. It would well, maybe maybe a bad podcast depends on your audience, but Um And if I get addicted to it, I know from experience that people don't do well when they get addicted to drug So if I think about it, I realize that taking the cocaine is bad for me Even though in the moment it will give me a high So usually selfishness is viewed as Pursuing whatever it is that will make you feel good in the moment. Now that's hedonism. That's not egosm Hedonism is the is the seeking out of pleasure for pleasure's sake, right? That's not what objectivism is. That's not what iron rand is advocating. Iron rand is advocating for rational selfishness So pursuing what's rationally in your self-interest over the long run So for example, let's take uh, let's take a few more and then we'll get to altruism So is it is it appropriate to lie steal a cheat is is always comes up? Well, no because I tell people You want to figure out that lying is not in your self-interest. Just want a small experiment Spend a day lying to your best friend Just everything you encounter lie to them and see how it works out And it's a disaster Right, if you lie to people it ultimately turns out as for you it turns out to be disaster They won't talk to you again. They don't trust you. They won't do business with you if you're in business But also it makes your life very complicated because you have to hold in your mind the lies and the truths and And multiple multiple things and our mind is an integrating machine So if you you know, there's a term in computers garbage in garbage out And if you stuff your mind with lies Soon It integrates with the truth and you can't tell what is what it's just a bad strategy the same with stealing if you steal Then you're basically admitting to yourself Subconsciously that you cannot produce in order to live And it actually destroys self-esteem So so so self-esteem is necessary for the achievement of happiness the achievement of flourishing So I need to identify three values as necessary for human survival and success Reason purpose and self-esteem the self-esteem is this idea this implicit idea That I know I can survive on this earth. I know I'm deserving of this life And if you steal You're undercutting that yeah, but could I quickly challenge this fellow? Shouldn't you defend basically slavery with this in a sense that you said that that uh It helped myself, but it does But it's really bad for the people working for you But it's really good for yourself because you get free free labor. No two reasons. One is slavery is economically Stupid it doesn't work economically to disaster economically And all you have to do is compare south before the civil war in the north before the civil war Who is richer by farther north was who is more innovative more more Prosperous more productive the north was by farther in the south and the reason is that slavery Is is is is is a bad economic system, but much more fundamental than that. Yeah, you cannot have a moral system that says It's okay for me or the the highest value is for me to pursue my own flourishing, but not for you Yeah That is that is that's philosophically completely corrupt So if you hold a moral system, it has to be universal moral system So what's good? So so if I to pursue my own self-interest that has to be what's right for everybody And if if it's wrong for you to use force and to use coercion against me It's stopping me in pursuit of my own my own happiness Then it's wrong for me to use force and coercion against you to stop you so so by by me treating you like a slave By me using force against you. I am undercutting the justification of my own morality I'm undercutting and therefore I can never flourish and be happy and be successful And all the portrayals of the south of this I don't know the the gone with the wind kind of portrayals This wonderful society that you know, I had a great life. It's it's nonsense That's not what life was about this was a a torn a morally corrupt Slavery is a corrupting institution and again, this is why they lost in the end. They had to lose, right? So So lying stealing and cheating Are not in your rational self-interest They undercut your self-interest that destroyers of your own soul They're destroying of your own ability to be happy and to flourish So to be happy and to flourish you have to discover and it's not easy But you have to discover the virtues Into the actions that you need to take in order to achieve flourishing and I'm going to identify seven They might be more they might be less But the point is that that's what morality should be it should be the discovery of the right virtues So she discovered seven rationality like independence. You have to think for yourself Productiveness you have to produce Something in order to live you you can't live as a leech off of others And if you don't produce you'll die, right? And being a leech again is destructive to your own self-esteem You have to have integrity. You can't believe in ideas or not act on them Because the action is is ultimately what What your life is about it's about acting and so And and you have to have pride in your own achievements because that's how you get self-esteem So you have to be able to recognize and you have to commit yourself to being a good moral person That's what pride is a commitment to morality a commitment to virtue Um You know justice you have to treat people the way they deserve Based on the value they have In the world and to you basically Uh, I'm missing one, you know, and you have to be honest. Yeah, because because rationality demands honesty. So now let's think about altruism Yeah, right. So what is altruism? now Most people think altruism is being nice to people But that's not what altruism means Right altruism is an ism. It's an ideology an ideology that says what well, who is the first philosopher To coin the term altruism. It was augustine compt right augustine compt the french philosopher Augustine compt says altruism is the idea in ethics That the purpose of your life the purpose of your life is to serve others You must sacrifice others. You must do for others Everything if you think about the benefit to you of helping somebody else It's not more Yeah, it's outside the realm of morality because you thought of yourself So the whole idea of altruism as an ideology is the negation of self Complete service to the community to the others to define others anywhere you want It's the antithesis of rational egoism. It's the exact opposite Now does that mean that objectivism or rational egoism means be mean Nasty rude to other people. Well, of course not other people are in incredible value to me Right. They produce the stuff that I consume They they and I'm not just talking about material well-being. They they they produce music and arts and all the wonderful things around me But more than that they human beings they share that essential humanity with me, right? So there are other rational beings, you know, we share values. We share certain things and and as a consequence of that You know Rational egoist has a benevolent attitude towards other people is friendly and polite and and you know Objectivist, you know, some people think objectivist or rationally selfish people wouldn't hold the door for somebody I mean, that's ridiculous. I mean, it's part of being alive and and having a A friendly positive Exchange with other people that you the politeness is is is an important part of that. It's not a primary virtue It's not the most important thing in the world, but it's something that makes life more enjoyable and more pleasant But being Selfish means valuing other people now unless you have reason not to value them, right? If you're a lying cheating sob Yeah, I don't value you. I'm not going to be nice to you. I'm not holding the door to you. I'm not going to hire you I'm not going to trade with you, right? So it's this is this is all a consequence of of iron man's idea of justice the idea of the virtue of justice You treat people the way they deserve and if you don't know somebody The assumption for egoist is that they're good No, because most people are good and and it's only if you have information about somebody is not being good You treat them badly otherwise So in the sense of that people talk about uh being polite and being nice and being friendly and even being charitable Absolutely, egoists would be charitable not indiscriminately charitable I'm not going to hand out dollar bills to anybody who comes and asks for it But I'm going to hand out But if somebody comes to me to help and they're basically a good person And and and I think that bad stuff has happened to them for no fault of their own. I'm happy to help them and and and You know rational egoistic people would be charitable Uh to a limit to the extent that it promoted their own values, but My values are very expansive. Yeah. Yeah, there's so much to to grab on here But we said the last part is a very good segue I think to to uh the role of government because you sort of touched on it with with the with the charity Charity versus a government welfare. Yeah I wrote some notes here. I might get back to them. We might circle back to these points about selfishness, but I'd like to get here now. So, uh The role of charity the basic the basic left argument against charity voluntary charity is is the fact that we there are There are certainly people it's it's it's you can't deny there are people who Not can't help themselves There are people who are poor poor off and there are there are poor. They maybe they have some Sort of disability. They can't help themselves Mistakes happen things happen variables. Yeah And also people inherit there are usually inherit their demographic their glass it et cetera et cetera. So, um There are certainly people who need to be helped is is uh is a government system a system of government welfare the argument would be That if we have this institution where where uh where people buy by mandate, but you would say by coercion Give money to or hand out money to and and and it allows the country to provide this platform Provide this safety net Um The leftist argument we usually be that certainly this system would be um Headled by by charity but but is it um But it shouldn't be it shouldn't be By the whim of these people it should Is it a wrong character? Well whim is the wrong characterization to begin with the right choice is the is the better characterization, right? But but beyond that I challenge your your your primary assumption because because I think it's way too broad There's a tiny fraction of a percent of the human population who cannot take care of themselves It's tiny Most people including very poor people can take care of themselves and I I think it's I think it's very platonic of us And and very elitist of us and very condescending of us to say to poor people you can't take care of yourself Yes, they can and indeed If you look at every society Where poor people have been basically given the same freedoms As we in the middle class and the upper classes take for granted if you will They take care of themselves fine and indeed many of them rise into the middle class and suddenly become super rich Right, so if you take 19th century america or you take hong kong of the 20th century Where there were no safety nets or very or only voluntary safety nets, but but relatively small And where basically all people had was freedom And in the protection protection of government from coercion and from fraud and and from stuff like that, right? And basically left alone poor people do very well, right when when immigrants came to america in the 19th century um, you know take my my jewish my jewish uh, uh ancestors Who didn't actually didn't go to america, but but those who did go to america They were poor they were ignorant These were farmers in the stettles of poland and and uh in lithuania and germany and ukraine and russia They they they were farmers They they they were tradesmen, but they had no wealth they came with nothing right They left everything in russia not that they had anything in europe right and they showed up In uh on the east side of new york with nothing And they were given Nothing And yet within two generations they were middle class and within three generations. They were upper middle class, right? Why because suddenly they were free Suddenly they were able and they value, you know, whatever reason they valued education The same thing happened with the pols And with the irish and with the italians who came to america in the 19th century just like today It's the poorest of the you know the mexicans who come right it's the poorest who come right and they came to america With nothing and they succeeded and they did fine without any government handouts with any game of protection They did fine who came to who came to hong kong hong kong 75 years ago was a little fishing village With a few tens of thousands of people today seven and a half million people with it They came from all over asia who came the poorest the people who escaped Even if they weren't poor they left everything behind because they escaped to come to hong kong And what did hong kong offer them? Nothing except the protection of poverty rights protection of of contract law. That's it a contract But has that in america poverty and homelessness been on the rise? Well, but we have a welfare state today and i would blame the welfare state for poverty and and and since the war on poverty started Poverty has been flat or increased a little bit So the war on poverty is what creates poverty Welfare in my view is what creates poverty because what is welfare welfare is institutionalization of poverty Right what i tell you when i give you welfare You're not able to take care of yourself. You're so stupid incompetent You need my help So i do two things by doing that one by giving you money i reduce your incentive to work Reduce your ambition to be successful because i'm even you're just enough to survive, right? But secondly and much more importantly I destroy your self-esteem because what i'm what what i'm basically telling you is you're too incompetent to take care of yourself So i and what happens if you look at america is mobility is shrunk And the reason mobility is shrunk is because we've institutionalized a certain segment of population of poverty We destroyed their ambition. We've told them they're worthless. We've told them they shouldn't strive Upwards to be successful and therefore there they are they're stuck And then we do all kinds of other stuff like minimum wage laws and licensing laws Which basically hold them and make them make sure they never get that first job So they can't advance. So we create a class that is poor america never used to have classes And one of the in my view because one of the reasons they never had classes because there was huge mobility You could become rich one day and poor the next because you could lose it all And you could be if you look if you think about the people with so-called robber barons Most of them started with nothing Rockefeller was a was a poor kid Carnegie was a poor kid. These were these were kids who had nothing but not even an education And look how they became the richest people in the world that was the kind of society that there was So isn't it a bit of a selection bias because it's two people Oh, yeah, but but but if you if you go back and you look I mean two of the richest right because we know their names But there were hundreds if not thousands and maybe even millions of people like that and look I'll talk about this in the talk later The history of the human race is a history of poverty Right. We're always poor 95 of people all over the world throughout all of history have been poor Defined as less than three dollars a day in today's dollars a few or less than two dollars a day even 95 of all human beings in all of history have been poor, right? Over the last 200 years because of capitalism because of freedom We're all rich. So if you look at the west Nobody's poor by the standard three dollars a day. Yeah, right. So yes Poor people in america poorer than everybody else. Yeah, but they're richer Then 99 of all the people who've ever lived in all of human history. No poor people because they have cell phones They have air conditioning. They have a car. They have a home so And and what made that possible what made that possible is capitalism what made that possible is a free markets what made that possible is It is just leaving people free. So but but let me go to a philosophical point here So so let's finish this point of saying so there's a fraction of people a tiny small Portion of people cannot take care of themselves. But it's very small We can do a much better job of taking care of them if we leave it to voluntary charity than we do if we do it by the state Because it's such a small number Because people will be motivated when people are motivated. They do a better job than when they're forced to do something Charity some charities there'll be competition between charities some charities work better than other charities So you get the same impact as you do in other voluntary market transactions And and it's not a big deal. It's not a lot of money and indeed again if you go back to 19th century america There are all kinds of things, you know, you could buy insurance in america against poverty So there was insurance you could pay every month and then if if you lost your job or something So there was private unemployment insurance There were there were all kinds of voluntary mechanisms and voluntary associations to protect you from bad stuff happening to you But when we institutionalize them into the state know what happens the number of people who need our help suddenly grows Because again, we we convey to them this idea that they need our help But then there's always somebody that the margin needs more, right? So let's say we define poverty. I don't know at the certain level Of income Right, but then what about the people just above that income? They need a little bit of help as well. So it keeps creeping up And and then you get the kind of Scandinavian welfare state where half the people are getting welfare You know or more than half the people in the united states today 47 percent of all americans get something from the government Now don't tell me 47 percent of americans cannot take care of themselves That's nonsense And it's nonsense that 60 percent of Scandinavians can't take it themselves. It's just not true. I I apologize Finland's not Scandinavian Well, I know this so I shouldn't have said it but when I look at a map it looks like you are so But but the point is that that what we do is we do a disservice So if you took it to the good people who really need welfare, it's such a tiny little fraction Then of course we can take care of our voluntarily But but once you accept the idea That There's a significant number of people that needs our help Then you fall into the platonic trap of why they need our help. Well, they can't think for themselves They're not responsible. So for example, why do we need social security in america? You know planning for pensions right now government provided pensions Why because people are too stupid to save for themselves Why they too stupid to save for themselves because they're in a cave and they only see shadows and we need philosopher kings Who can see so once you fall into that trap the camera is beeping for some reason Battery did the recording stop? I don't know once you fall into that trap Then that group expands and expands and expands and you give more and more and more power To that group of philosopher kings at the top And there really is no end to it and that's what we're experiencing in the modern welfare state that it keeps growing and growing and growing And there's no end to it and I can certainly agree with with one one thing That's that's I think more or less evident in Finnish society and that's uh, that's uh, uh, the fact that I don't think Doesn't matter Yeah, we died. Yeah, all right no replacement battery No Oh, you'll you'll you'll put it up. You'll cut it you'll edit it nicely So the cut is good. We'll photoshop this this empty part somehow, but there's a And one thing I certainly agree on and that's uh, that's that might might also be the the let's see the pessimism in Finnish culture It's there's a characterist as pessimism in Finnish culture. It's actually there's a german Author who moved to Finland and people warned him about to finish jealousy finish pessimism And and and he the german author said well in every country everyone's jealousy is a universal thing But then he lived here for like 10 years and he like no, no, it's it's it's actually a special thing Well, I mean, but it's but yeah, I mean, but it's it's very typical of kind of dramatic People who take continental philosophy seriously and take this platonic view I think it's somewhat related to the weather you have and maybe to being in northern europe But but yeah, there's there's a bit of a sense of this I don't know how what else way to characterize it middle of this Nietzschean master slave morality kind of attitude where where the There's this dichotomy between the masters and the and the slaves and and what one important factor in it is Is is the fact that they they consider each other to be evil They consider each other to be to be the on the wrong side of the moral spectrum So which means that the slaves they don't have emissions to rise up to the master master level But they were partially because they're told they cannot and because they're different types of human beings They are the other people in the cave. So it all goes back to this platonic dichotomy In differentiation of people in that way, which can't and then Nietzsche follow up on and and you know You know Nietzsche's ubermanches is Plato's philosopher king. I mean right so it's But but there's definitely Europe has a pessimism that you don't find in America and and and I think one of the virtues of Asia is that in in you find it Certainly in in Chinese society, you don't seem to see the same kind of pessimism and I think that explains Part of this incredible success that China has had over the last partially. It's it's the It's there. It's the freedom But Chinese are all very entrepreneurial and and and I think that comes from a much more optimistic Or in my view realistic view of of the world Then then Europeans typically have now what's interesting is Europeans who went to America tend to become optimists Right, we had to you had to be a bit of an optimist to go and yes You had to be yeah because you packed up and left everything that was comfortable and went no idea And I think in that sense there's been a brain drain or more accurately a spiritual drain Right the people with the spirit of individualism the people with the spirit of Positivism of the idea that things that can be done that you can be successful That you can achieve something packed up from Europe and left Europe and went to America and that explains part of the differences In in attitude between I mean Europe took German idealism seriously And American never did until recently until the last you know over the last hundred years It's been slowly creeping into American society and that's why America's on the decline Because it's becoming more like Europe. I mean the the the the evil in american societies is becoming More like european society and even if you think even when you think about things like The attitude towards wealth right in in finland like in scandinavia like in the rest of europe There's a strong sense of envy If somebody somebody's very rich we despise them we hate them right and and and In america, there's never been that sense of envy and I think part of it comes from From a sense in europe that wealth is is by definition stolen because if you go back long enough in history How did people become wealthy? How did they become aristocrats right an aristocrat is just a good thief right the thief who got away with it Right that's because the only way in the old days to make money wasn't to make it was to steal it It's to take it So in the in the european psyche if you will there's this association of wealth With thievery with with robbery with theft right you see it in in in uh in a story like robin hood right The way prince john in robin hood became wealthy is by taking the money from the poor or taking the money from other people And that's how he becomes rich right and that's what's in the psyche of the europeans But in america because it's a new country And it's a country really created With a dawn of capitalism. It's a country in wealth wealth is Created I mean iron rand says that the american people are the first people who who have the term making money americans don't redistribute money they make it they create it right And so americans associate wealth with the creation of wealth With somebody doing something productive with somebody doing something that actually has Is benefited other people because the only way to make money is to create a value that other people want and are willing to pay for So everybody benefits when you make money and that's the appropriate response to money making But that's a very american response and a very anti european response. So europeans still have this envy because they associate wealth with aristocracy And therefore with stealing americans associate wealth with creation with production With innovation and therefore we still have a respect for money and and you see it today We're in america. We respect the guys in silicon valley Because they're we know that they're creating wealth. We can see them creating wealth. We use their products We resent some of the older industries because they're in bed with government They some of their wealth creation comes from cronyism rather than from real wealth creation, right? It's redistribution again. It's thievery and we don't like that So it's still america's healthier than europe in the way we approach wealth, okay, and um Do you so you see do you see no, uh, no truth in the in the european attitude of That's maybe frame it like this Talk about regulation. Yeah, i'm going to come to I actually have some questions from my friend sent that wouldn't they would like to ask They're gonna be interesting, but i mean in terms of regulation Uh, usually the the common justification for having regulations in in various businesses or various fields or industries is is uh To um, sort of stop these quote-unquote quasi illegal quasi immoral acquisitions of wealth is Do you think it's necessary? Do you see any role for that because i'm not saying necessarily human beings are evil by nature or that most people Are evil, but there's this there's this factor of diffusion of responsibility. It's easy to be Perhaps as a theory as a hypothesis to be Not being aware of the consequences of what your business might be doing It's not because of your moral, but it's because your human psyche doesn't respond morally or ethically It doesn't it doesn't have the the response isn't there if you don't see it right next to you Yeah, but but a government official has it right they they know exactly what's small and what's right And they could they could figure it all out, right? I mean, it's it's the whole assumption is a ridiculous assumption Um, it's basically against saying that we need some experts some philosopher kings who can figure out What the consequences of your action is going to be better than you and better than the marketplace? So you're not willing to admit that there's any role for this any kind of absolutely zero I would I would argue for zero regulations that is which clearly fraud is wrong But we don't need new regulations in order to stop fraud. We've always had uh, you know laws against fraud and and uh, and then Clearly, they're going to be new harms that people commit against one another because of technology But the market's very good at discovering those harms and the legal system is very good at taking care of them But but you know, the assumption is That if I don't have a government inspector Inspector elevators before when they're installed in this building then elevators manufacturers are going to manufacture elevators They're going to kill people But that's just stupid. Yeah, right. But and think about how many mechanisms the market has created in order to make sure that elevators won't kill people Right, you have to buy insurance Insurance inspectors from insurance companies are going to inspect the elevators because they won't ensure the elevators unless they've inspect The the developers developing the building has a strong incentive that the elevators work because they're going to be liable If something happens, so they're going to inspect you as an elevator inspector The ultimate tenant of the building the people are actually living in the building have a strong incentive So they're going to want to see that there's some certification of proof that the elevator is a good elevator Now, who do you trust more? The guy who works for an insurance company Who is going to get fired if they do a bad job doing the inspection or the guy who works for the government Who never gets fired because he's got tenure who's who's making minimum wage or some low wage and therefore it's much more open to bribery So my view is that that there's much more corruption much more opportunity for this idea of human Diffusion or whatever you want to call it like not knowing what's right or what's wrong Much more opportunities for that when the government has centralized power Then there is when you diffuse the power throughout the economy when you have multiple inspectors and the elevators Because they're multiple people interested and when the inspectors need to do a good job Why? Because they job and they lively or depend on doing the good job Then some inspector is doing it for the common good because he's a good altruist I don't trust a good altruist. I mean when I see a good altruist, I run for the hills It's scared. I'm scared of people who tell me they're doing this for the common good and for the public interest Because nobody knows what the common good is nobody knows what the public interest is There's no way to know it because what is the public? It's a bunch of individuals. Yeah, what's good for the public? What's good for a bunch of individuals? But who knows what's good for individuals? Only the individual knows that Right, okay. That's why we need to leave them free To pursue their own good and the only time the government intervenes is when I'm doing you harm or when I Threaten to do you harm. That's the only time and as long as I'm not doing you harm So the assumption that mcdonald would poison us mcdonald would poison us if if if we didn't have food inspectors It's nuts. It's completely insane. There's two more examples and recently the brazilian meat Scandal where they bribed Government inspectors. Well, of course. I mean they always bribe guys It's much easier to bribe a government inspector than the private inspector and look are they going to be a moral people? Absolutely Are they going to be bad people? Yes And and to the extent that they do think that violate the rights of others They should be sent to jail for a long long time Does this government regulation prevent that? No, I would argue the opposite the more government regulates The more incentive there is for poor people for bad people to exist. Why? because Basically what government is telling the markets is don't worry. We got it. So don't think Don't don't don't don't supervise don't inspect Right. No buy everywhere We've got it. We've taken care of it. So I'll give you an example from finance, right? We have created a market in which The government has basically said we regulate every aspect of financial markets So when you buy stocks or bonds or whatever, don't worry You know, we've got your back Nobody's going to commit fraud against you. You don't have to check these things out Because because we've we the scc has inspected everything. I don't think a bony made up I don't know if you're familiar with bony made up. Yeah, the big pyramid scheme guy I don't think he would have existed in a free market I think the only reason bony made up existed is because of the complacency of the people who gave him money Because they were assuming that because the scc was there because government was supervising everything He was fine, right? And Indeed, if you look at bony made up, I think that's a great case study to examine, right because bony made up committed fraud on a massive scale Was never discovered by the regulators How did they discover him? Because his kids Told on him his son told him The scc actually got a a large report from a hedge fund manager private hedge fund manager telling them Why bony made up was a was a pyramid scheme four years before they caught him And they ignored it Right, so the private markets saw the fraud well before the scc did And imagine if the scc was a private organization or if the job of the scc was only one That the scc existed but it had only one job To catch fraud Yeah Not to read my 13 g's and 13 d's and all the documents I have to file every time I buy stock and sell stock Because I own maybe more than five percent of particular stock not to follow around the the law-abiding citizens and delve into everything A little thing not to tell companies how to run their business or to tell board of directors how to become You know what they shouldn't should do but instead of that all they did Was look out for fraud then they would have caught bony made up like that, but they're so busy Trying to manage my life As an investor that they don't have time to catch fraudsters So fraud is much more prevalent today than it would be in a free market much more prevalent today But on another aspect, um, was it in a problem in the 21st century where a lot of Businesses would dump their waste in their environment in america particularly. So isn't that uh, that's funny They would say in america in particular. What is what do you think is the dirtiest place on the planet? 30 40 years ago No, let's say the 1970s 1980s. What was the dirtiest place on the planet? I I couldn't ask Yeah The east right the eastern bloc eastern germany was much more polluted than west germany romania You know poland filthy filthy filthy filthy. Why no because everything was public central planning And everything was public. So what do you take care of? You take care of your own stuff So the way to solve the problem of pollution is to privatize everything If you privatized all the land and all the rivers and all the lakes and the beachfront And even fishing rights like iceland has done recently Then people start taking care of their stuff Right So every you can't pollute the river if it I own it Yeah, and if you own part of the river and I own part of the river Then we have to negotiate how the river is going to be used So that you don't pollute on your side and screw up my use of it downstream And there's long traditions in the old days when rivers were private In in american west of of how we dealt with those kind of situations, right? So Capitalism is the way to clean the environment Capitalism doesn't dirty in the environment. The environment's always been dirty Right. Why why didn't northern europeans has always been dirty? Yeah, here's more dirty since the industrial No, I mean well in a sense But in a sense now we live in the cleanest environment in all of human history for human beings Say, why do you why do you northern europeans drink beer? Do you know why why you drink beer so much was so polluted back in the water was so polluted before human beings polluted the water Just because nature pollutes that it wasn't good for human beings to drink water. Why do chinese drink tea? Because their water was so polluted the tea guarantees that you boil the water So you had to boil the water before you drank it and tea was a way to to make sure that you did that You know, so water's always been polluted today. Do you have to boil the water? You don't have to drink beer today. We drink beer because we like to right so we have a choice back then We didn't have a choice. So the fact is that for human beings right now Here we in the 21st century the environment has never been cleaner Think about the air right when we lived on farms Where we cultivated you had to grow the food that you ate Do you think the air with all the host manure? And the and the fertilizing garbage and everything else that was going. You think the air was clean? Yeah, but isn't that we're doing that in a mass scale. Yeah, no, isn't that this disregarding the uh, the fact that humans have caused the I'm sorry global warming and that In the color reefs are disappearing. Yeah, we're doing that on a mass scale now if you use the example as a farm animal But we're not again take take that. So we've got massive scale farm animals. Yeah, and yet we're living More than double what we used to live much more than double what we used to live, right? So so life is pretty good Right, must be must be better. I agree. It's necessary for it to up. No, but just just think about human life So if the standard is human life, not the planet, I don't know what the hell the planet means But if the standard is human life, we used to live at the end of they have the 1717 hundreds. What was life expectancy? 50 40 30 years, I don't know 39. Okay, so I'd be dead and you'd be middle-aged Right, but isn't that also we talked about statistics in the beginning. Isn't that isn't that uh, isn't that just an average Maybe maybe people used to live until they were 70. This is just a minor point But very few people live into their 70s But but it's also true that a lot of people died before the age of 10 About 50 percent of children died, but why did they die? They died because of malnutrition because of diseases because of all these things So one of the and think how how many people were around how many people on the planet in 1800 Less than a billion people. Yeah, I think somewhere about 600 million, right? How many people on the planet today? 8 billion people, right? So there are more people We live more than double the lifespan So why are we complaining about the environment there? Viment has never been better The air we breathe is is is is clean air. The water we drink is clean water. Yeah, okay Let's assume let's assume the earth is warming now and uh So what so Finland will become easier to live in right? I mean Finland's terrible. It's so cold So you're really worried about flooding in Florida. Yeah, no, but that's that's like wearing on a short scale Let's say we escalate it more and more and more than at the end. It's all desert. There's no there's no science There's no science to suggest That we're going to escalate it to such an extent of warmth that human life will not be possible plus what you're ignoring is human ingenuity human innovation human ability to survive under very extreme conditions and because of our minds And the ability of human beings to figure out ways to reduce global warming if it becomes a real threat I don't believe it is a threat to human life Even if it's happening. It's I don't think it's a threat to human life It might be a threat to certain people and they move but the earth has been warmer than it is Projected to be in the next hundred years in our past. Yeah, what worries me is the next ice age Ice ages are much more dangerous to human beings than global warming is and we know that the cycles of the earth are going to Bring about an ice age one day What are we going to do in the glaciers in the midwest of the united states? And when everything around finland is literally covered in ice, what then how are you then going to survive? So You have to put global warming in the perspective and again Your generation has grown up Believing in the every generation grows up in believing that the end of the world is imminent I mean, it's a part of human whatever We we we always believe that the world is going to end tomorrow And it you know my maybe the generation before me believed that we were going to annihilate Nihilate ourselves because of the cold war nuclear weapons And then my generation believed that we're going to kill ourselves because of overpopulation and the chemicals in the air And none of that ever happened right and now your generation believes that we're going to kill ourselves with global warming It never happens. We're not going to kill ourselves. We're too smart to kill ourselves Right. Yeah, but we don't we don't have to kill ourselves with global warming But it can make life a lot more difficult. Let's say that sea level rises a lot So the sea level rises so people in Florida have to move but at the same time Canada and finland Become much more habitable and much more habitable. So people move from Florida to Canada. Who cares? Why is this why is this becoming such an obsession with people when you know, you know In netherlands is always being below sea level. No and and Amsterdam is a rich thriving city So if if sea levels rise and Miami needs to build the wall out there into the sea to protect itself Who cares so it'll cost a little bit of money much cheaper by the way than not using carbon fuels I'd rather use carbon fuels and build the wall to prevent sea level rising Right. So again, there's this human obsession with the end of the world Yeah, it never it doesn't happen and it doesn't have to happen if if we're free To exercise our minds to figure out solutions. The solution can be cannot be To stop civilization, which is what not using carbon fuels would mean. Yeah, you can't replace carbon fuels You can't replace them even not today not today Not today, but it would be a smart investment to to prove on on no carbon fuels are incredibly cheap They're incredibly dense with energy They're the best form of energy consumption today except for one other form Which is nuclear, but because of regulations nuclear is so expensive nobody wants to use it But in nuclear is much safer than carbon fuels much safer even a few people have died from nuclear than have died from from accidents at wind farms and it's uh So nuclear is a solution. Yeah, but we're so freaked out because of radioactivity or whatever that we won't invest in nuclear But that's what we should be investing in is is in nuclear energy, but then carbon fuels are so dense with energy That other than nuclear they're the second best Solar and wind are some of the most inefficient Mechanisms to produce energy ever thought of So the technology would have to advance way ahead of where it is today to come anyway close to the kind of energy density That the carbon fuels or the nuclear yeah, but it's an energy that we can have forever though in a sense If we can advance the solar technology, we can have that energy source forever. Sorry No, no, it's fine. Can I frame this? Because this is one question related to this yeah my friend robin I'm going to just sort of read a verbatim currently the amount of resources being used in the world are far from sustainable I mean the natural resources are being depleted far faster than they're being regenerated There's a strong correlation between resource use and rise in standard of living There's also a strong correlation between lowering resource use and government implemented taxes For example the currently relevant carbon tax and cap and trade programs If government regulation of corporations is the enemy, how do you propose bringing resource utilization Down to a sustainable level I think the assumption is is ridiculous I don't think there's any depletion of resources going on the amount of resources in the universe Is unlimited from the perspective of human life The globe which is this massive ball of resources We've scraped barely Barely anything from this globe The you know every time I hear we've got we've got peak oil I've heard in my lifetime at least four times we've reached peak oil And then it turns out there's more oil reserves today In the world than in any points in human history We know we're close to depleting resources We have infinite by the time we get to the point where resources are being depleted and if we allow human advancement and if we don't Crush carbon fuels and everything else. We'll be going to the asteroids and farming asteroids mining asteroids We haven't started mining the moon. Do you know how many resources in the moon? I don't know nobody knows until we start mining it. We won't find out. What about Mars, right? So there's no limit There's a wonderful There's one of my favorite economists ever was a guy named julian simon and everybody stood study this guy And nobody does unfortunately and he wrote two books called the ultimate resource and the ultimate resource two And in those books he shows that there's only one limited resource in the world And that is human ingenuity the human mind Because oil was in the ground And it wasn't it wasn't a resource. What was it? It was it was uh, it was a it was it actually lowered the value of the land If there was oil leaking in your land it lowered the value until some genius came around and figure out that you can turn that black gooey disgusting stuff Into energy right that took a genius. That's some human mind The planet is a ball of stuff All is required is human ingenuity to turn that ball of stuff into whatever it is that we need But there's no shortage of resources. The only shortage is imagination And the thing that destroys ingenuity the thing that destroys the human mind is force So the morganment regulates the morganma taxes The morgan uses force against us the morganma tells us wind is good And this is bad and that's bad and it channels resources into what the what the central planners believe is good The less resources they are but if we just left markets alone, what would happen? Well before we we had oil depletion. What would happen? The price of oil would go you're studying economics, right? The price of oil would go up All would then incentivize venture capitalists in silicon valley to do invest in something look for something new Look for something new and we think the central planners in washington dco and helsinki or anywhere else Know what the energy source of the future is or should be They you know and the fact is that they're investing in in energy Sources wind and solar that we know Are far less efficient than oil and natural gas that the market would never invest in And there's a reason it would never invest it it doesn't make any sense to invest in those things so The whole premise of the thing and again, this is how you guys have been raised your generation has been Inducorinated brainwashed with the ideology of environmentalism Which is which is a horrible ideology which tells you that there's limited resources on the planet That man is a destructive force That's destroying the environment as if there's any environment other than the human environment Which is the best that's ever been. I mean think about how good human life is today No, it's unbelievable. You can get on a plane as I did yesterday and arrive in helsinki Right and and on the plane. I had wi-fi I could I could be connected to anybody on the planet while I was flying in a in a in an airplane That was using those evil carbon fuels. I mean this is We live in the greatest period in all of human history. We live the longest the healthiest The most prosperous and yet you guys are supposed to be impressed because you're destroying the planet No, you'll you know that you should be celebrating how wonderful capitalism is that it's created Here we are sitting with microphones that are You know, I have one of these mics in the u.s. Because they're so good and they're so cool in their every way I mean life is unbelievable. It's unbelievably good and and stop worrying about the depletion of natural resources That's a perspective of a central planner Only platonic central planner philosopher kings worry about the depletion of resources People like me say, ah, who cares? Right, the market will take care of it People are smart enough to figure it out because you know what every example I can find We people suspected that resource was being depleted. It turned out it wasn't You know fracking think about fracking fracking is this amazing way to extract more oil out of wells that we thought were depleted Who would have imagined that what central planner would have come out of that? Right, I remember when um, it hasn't fracking caused a lot of problems in the areas where fracking has been done Yeah, the problems are minor as compared to their benefits Yes, it's caused a little bit of problems to pay the people whose whose problems have been caused But the problems are minor as compared to the fact that today the united states produces as much oil as Saudi Arabia does Who cares about the little problems? Right. Yeah. All right. I mean and and what are those problems? You know, they yet to be clearly defined, but even if they were problems. Okay. Well, let's solve those problems Let's find the problems and solve them rather than saying. Oh my god. We don't want new technology because it creates problems Right in abstraction. What are the concrete problems? It's like global warming if the warm if the world is really warming up and sea levels are really rising Then let's think creatively about problems. So example insurance companies What would happen to insurance in if you lived in Florida? Insurance rates would go up and it would become very expensive to own a home on the coast of Florida And people would start leaving well before the oceans would rise up Yeah, but you could also just stop this by not using coal and going to nuclear and what would in a For instance, I wonder yeah, but again, what are the costs of nuclear now? Let's see now. I'm all for going to nuclear The only thing that's preventing the market from going to nuclear Is the unbelievable cost of regulation? Yeah, get rid of the regulation lower the regulation and let's get more nuclear power plants They're wonderful new nuclear reactors that are small incredibly efficient very safe. Let's build them all over the place I'm all for that but You know the fact is that even people who even people who People who study global warming who the the people who really think it's happening and happening think that it's too late already Right, so but but okay insurance rates. I'm saying even if sea rises If if government didn't subsidize insurance, which it does in the united states on the coast Right government subsidize people to live Where the sea levels are going to rise if they rise, right? So let's assume government did away with that and with private insurance markets Then private insurance companies would say to you i'm not gonna sell you insurance if you live in the coast So what are you gonna do? You're not gonna live in the coast. You're gonna move somewhere. So what? But aren't the people most threatened uh You have a photo shoot so we have to wrap this up for you. When is it? It's half past so we have to like okay, maybe okay, so um There's one more question i want to ask but before that then um, uh, isn't But aren't the people who who should be most concerned about this Possible relocation that's going to happen if the sea levels rise as they seem It seems like they are i doubt that they are i mean i think they're stereo about global warming We can like that right now I think they just like they stereo around most of these environmental issues. Okay is overblown I'm not going to challenge whether the gold was warming or not. It's probably warming It's warming at a much slower rate than the models predict And sea levels are rising at a far slower pace than any of the models predict And i i'm willing to put real money on the table now That by the end of your lives, which is a long time from now Uh, things will not be anywhere near as catastrophic as as people are predicting today because these catastrophes They never happen. They never happen because we exaggerate. This is this goes to a colman's Cognitive biases One of the human cognitive biases that exists and and we can think about why it exists But it exists is we overplay the negatives. We always think the negatives are far bigger and he talks about this But it's true in environmentalism. We always think that that we are destroying the planet. It's not going to happen Okay, i'm not a scientist I'm not a scientist either. That's why I don't want to argue the science But I but I will argue the predictions the predictions are overblown Because every prediction i've seen from the same scientist, you know early, uh, who's uh, who's uh, who's a stanford, uh I can't remember if it's sociologist. What is he wrote a famous book in 1968 called the population bomb Yeah, right and he predicted hundreds of millions of people would die in the 1970s from starvation Because there were too many people in the planet didn't happen No In the early 70s He was one of the key people behind the idea that the earth was cooling and the new york times had a headline The global cooling is happening and it didn't happen and he is one of the key people early on Advocating for global warming. So when I see that like I'm a finance guy, right? If you come to me and you want me to invest in your fund, what do I ask you first? What's your past performance? How have you done? Yeah, and if you done poorly, I'm not going to give you any money So I look at these environmentalists every prediction they've made It's not turned out really well But there's no the the predictions about the the arctic Arctic, uh, but Antarctica at the southern end the ice is expanding So here it's shrinking in there. It's expanding again. Explain that but by my point is and they can't predict the weather tomorrow They can't predict the weather tomorrow, but they want to tell me they know what the weather is going to be in 10 20 years Because they're looking at correlations in in long-term statistics. I'm very skeptical. Okay. I'm very scared. No, I'm not saying it's wrong I'm just saying the given past performance I'm skeptical if you look at the models the models predicted the last 15 years would be unbelievably warm and they haven't turned out It's turned out to be well since 1998 Then no the warm on based on on on On observations on the earth, but if you look at satellite, which is much more accurate It it's basically being flat since 1998 Okay, I I haven't seen that research. I can't answer well because I mean people like headlines It's a warmest warmest year ever. No, but that's but these are they they can choose this just because they want to use All right. All right. That's interesting. Thanks for the honest perspective though. I mean, it's good to hear it. Yeah but the point is People panic people overplay the negatives in in almost everything and and and by the way This is why just to bring it up to politics of today, right? This is why somebody like donald trump can win Right because he goes out and what does he say? He says the world is ending There's crime everywhere in the streets of america crime is at the lowest rate. It's been in 30 years or you know Peeked it it's it went up a little bit last year and it's relative to the 1980s. It's very low He says this He talked about carnage in the streets of america carnage in the streets of america man. It's ridiculous And then he says if you travel around america all you see is empty factories We produce more stuff today in america than ever in human history Double what we did in 1979 when peak Production was so in terms of stuff we produce more we we do it with half the people why Not because they're chinese because we have robots and computers who do the work So the way donald trump won is by scaring people to death And blaming foreigners and the elites for the problems But but he's playing on this on this pessimism That seems to be inherent somehow in in this negativity people have and i'm saying All you have to do is look around the world and look around your environment And what you discover is that it's never been this good. It's you know One of the benefits of co2 is there more trees. It's greener Uh, it you know, yeah, so some color reef is being destroyed I mean, that's kind of sad if you like snorkeling and scuba diving But you know what my guess is that just as it's being destroyed there It's probably being created because they're warmer seas somewhere else and it's being created in unexpected places Yeah, but we're cutting down the trees for farmlands and uh, so But why are we cutting down trees for farmland because there's no private property rights where there's private property? There are more trees than they were before Right, so if you look at the united states, just just no I'm just tell me what you really think not what you think i'm gonna. Yeah, okay. Yeah Do you think there are more trees today in the u.s? Today or a hundred years ago a hundred years ago. No, there were many more trees today than they are a hundred years ago Many more not even close why? Because we're so efficient in growing food today That there's less farm land And the farm land that's disappeared has been replaced by fallists That's reason one second reason is there's money to be made, right? So if I cut down trees And sell you paper. Yeah What do I do? What do I do after I cut down the trees? If I'm a greedy businessman You what do I do if I cut down the trees and I sell you the paper or more Yeah, grow more because I'm greedy and I want to be able to sell you tomorrow trees as well So I so and not only that I think about how to increase the density of the trees on my plot of land This is by the way. Why when you recycle paper You get less trees not more The more you recycle the fewer trees they're going to be because you destroy the incentive To replant trees instead of replanting trees for the future because demand for paper is going to shrink I'm going to use the land for something else because my business is gone This is pure economics 101. Just just think about it for a minute Any re any reusable resource. Yeah, the more you use The more you're gonna have So if if we believe that consumption of trees is going to go up in the future, we would plant more trees Basic business now Why are trees being destroyed in the amazon because nobody owns the amazon and because we've we've taken people who don't own any land And they are good poor And what they do is they burn forest land And they cultivated for agriculture and then the police come and they kick them off the land and they go to another plot of land And they burn it and they design it for agriculture if all of that land was owned privately And given to those people I'm all for land reform in brazil and giving very poor people the land that they cultivate Anyway, and it's private ownership then people would Be much more responsible about how it's being treated So the solution to buddy, but there's more again. There's much more forest land. This is you can you can check this out I'm not making a much more forest land today in america And my guess is there's probably more forest land in sweet in in finland today than there was in the past Okay, we've blasted through two hours almost One more question. I this is I still have to give a talk How's your throat? I just need to think about what what I have to say What I've got left is I said it all here I'm going to be shouting there hurt it All right, it's the last question. It's really kind of related to the first first one I brought up the previous one actually What is your take on Potential post scarcity economy where the idea of selfishness is tempered by everybody having enough resources Should we be heading towards this as fast as possible with technological advances or will a lack of competition be bad for us Is for my friend Jamie Again, I don't completely understand the question because I don't believe I mean I don't I don't buy the whole scarcity thing The only scarce resource is again ingenuity and imagination and and the use of reason We already in a sense live in a post scarcity environment, right? There's enough food on the planet to feed everybody. There's a basic needs all taking care of yeah There's some problems in Africa, but you can easily take care of that if you just gave them property rights and so on But human needs are unlimited What we want is unlimited every time I think oh if only made x number of money, I'd be happy As soon as I make that money, I want more right, which is cool because there's so many fun things in the world you're never satisfied in the sense of Experiencing enough things or having enough things. There's always more that you want and more than you need So Human beings are always that's always going to grow. So we we live today in a world where we can imagine One day robots doing everything and we will just it's nonsense We will never just sit around because a we want we need to work We enjoy work we value work So we are going to continuously find things to do and find new products and new services and new stuff to make Why would competition disappear competition will only intensify and again competition is a function of freedom The more freedom we have the less government regulation government control government even even antitrust doesn't help Uh, I don't believe in antitrust laws. I think they should be gone because the best thing for competition is free markets Is is to get government out of our lives and in in that sense. I don't believe competition will go away Competition would only intensify and the more the individual Has the tools like computers and other tools to create and design and make more stuff the more competition There is then we become competitors on just about everything because we can do so much With the tools that are being that that we have available to us But all natural resources Are products of the human mind If you think about every natural resources, I mean there was an iron age Why was there an iron age because people suddenly discovered what to do with the stuff called iron But how did they discover it? By using their mind by figuring it out. So all natural resources Are resources that are created by the human mind discovered if you will by the human mind And as long as we have a human mind and as long as their mind is left free To to think and to innovate and to to to discover new things There's never going to be a shortage and there's never really going to be problems that we cannot overcome So the bottom line is what you want is freedom and the more freedom the better So and this is why the regulatory state is bad because it's the use of force It's why the welfare state is bad because it's the use of force and force Is the enemy of reason if I put a gun to the back of your head Thinking is out and if that's the principle forces the enemy of reason what we want is to maximize reason We get rid of force all force everywhere I wish we could do this for 10 hours You might not my might fall asleep in the meantime, but this is this has been fantastic. Good. Well, I've enjoyed it. This has been good Yeah, and uh, uh, I'm looking forward to your lecture later. Thank you. Thank you. It should be fun minutes Thank you so much for coming Dr. Burke. Pleasure. Thanks for having me. Thank you. All right