 Collaboration anyone can I hear anyone? Oh, hold on. I need to unmute people. Okay I'm mute. I'm unmuting Ivan. I'm unmuting Con VB Okay, I think I am muting David The one guy I know hold on it looks like we can do it ourselves Sorry Okay, so yeah, I'm new to this. This is but I wonder why my videos not showing All right. Hey everybody. All right Whoever's here. Let's talk. I'm open. Hello. Who's here? Who's not muted? Who's here? I'm here Hello Yeah, who's this? It's con Ivan Hello, I See yeah, I see con okay Okay, I guess people mute and unmute themselves. Okay, this is my first attempt at this So my idea was if this works, I will do more in the future But I thought this would be like, you know an attempt. So any suggestions comments? Whatever I'm open Someone say something ask a question Can I ask a question? Sure I was reading through the citations of one of your articles how we come to own ourselves and In the citations there was an English translation of one of Hoppe's writings things called property anarchy in the state But it said it was an informal translation. I wanted to know Where if you had that translation and I have a follow-up question if you Well, we could talk fairly informally here To be honest, this is a strange coincidence. I just talked to Hans hoppa Five minutes ago. We were talking on the phone We were friends we talk all the time I'm not sure which Which that which audit which which Publication that is Could you could you tell me more because I don't remember any kind of anything about that It's it's in German. It's good I can really read it but I can to anarchy and Start and it's in your article how we come to our own ourselves It says there was an informal English translation of it But I couldn't find I couldn't find it on the internet if it is on the internet. So I Think if I remember what happened was Hans told me yes, I thought of this before but it's not been translated and so I looked into it And I think Gido Holtzman or Hans. I can't remember which one at this point helped me translate a few passages But as far as I know that particular piece is not in Translated from German into English or other languages I Would like to but all I have is the Translations of a few passages that I got out of Gido Holtzman and in Hans The reason I asked this is because I'm currently trying to write something on children rights and The in the in your article you talked about that a lot And I wanted to ask if you still hold the belief that we have positive obligations for children. We need to Satisfy Yeah, my view is not changed I think that if you You know Create a life that is arguably rights-bearing then yes, you have some positive obligations to take care of that life just the normal, you know Conservative traditionalist view of of living I Don't think is that controversial How you format why you have this obligation is a libertarian thing But yeah, sure. Yeah, I don't disagree that you have an obligate the problem is saying you have an obligation Doesn't mean too much because if you don't have a statist apparatus to enforce it What does it really mean? Right? I mean If you have a 14 year old child who's being abused and neglected They're basically better off to run away and find a new life or a new home or a new set of parents or whatever then to try to Sue their parents for support. Yeah, excuse me, sir Sure, you allow my friends to join. I'm trying right now. Hold on a second. Hold on a second. Okay Any questions comments discussions anything I mean, I'm open to anything I'm just doing this as an experiment to see what what might work in the teacher Could I ask a question? Mr. Kinsella? Sure You can you hear me properly? I hear you Okay Mr. Kinsella, I Wanted to know I'm a lawyer based in Paris. My name is Viraj Bidi and I know that you have worked a little bit on questions of International investment law and things like that. I think you also written a book which was published by Oxford of Quite of quite of a quite a while back. Is that is that correct? Yes, although the second edition just came out last month, so it's actually pretty recent 2020 Okay, so I had a Just as a matter of discussion, I had a two-part brief questions both are very brief the first was More more legal the first question was do you really think that? That an idea like states giving consent to To arbitration under all these I'm sorry investors giving consent to arbitration under all these treaties In the light of the current crisis could kind of put the state's feet to the fire and use that and you be used as a signaling mechanism Even to try and control the amount of madness that these states are going to do in the name of this crisis That was my first question and more generally do you think that? Investment treaty arbitration even though we have always been against investment treaties in principle Is that the lesser of two evils compared to not having anything as a protection for foreign investment? These are my two questions. Thank you. Well, why don't we just talk about it because I'm not sure that we're against investment treaties. I mean, what do you mean by that? Well, I was looking at this I was looking at a lot of articles on these two to try and see the kind of position that was taken and for example Robert was never a big fan of any any investment it is because Finally, it was I mean he said that it was just finally special interest coming in and and getting what they wanted in those It was all the protectionism all over again, and it didn't really change anything And so I think that the default position would be unilateral free trade, right? Okay, so if you have a reference to what you're talking about with Rothbard, please send it to me because I'd be interested in it Type it in the link. I mean, you had a very famous article on NAFTA, for example Which I can which I can find for you. I'll type it in the in the chat and we can pursue of some time Right and so now we get into the way some lawyers look at things I Don't think of Free trade as the same as I think of investment issues Okay, so let me let me explain free trade just means that between regions or nations or states That they trade with each other with very low impediments to trade basically low tariffs Okay, so free trade has to do with Nations trading with each other Services or goods, okay, okay investment agreements Have to do more with Citizens or investors of one country From another Jurisdiction investing in and establishing a business unit and a factory or something like that in another country Okay, and so that that issue Usually has to do with investment agreements which are called bilateral Investment treaties BITs or multilateral But they have to do with protecting property rights in the local regime Okay, okay free trade Honestly has almost nothing to do as far as I can see with With protecting property rights free trade just means how much of a tariff Will you impose on the flow of goods and services between borders Right, and then immigration is yet another issue of the free trade or the free flow. Sorry of Human being bodies like between so you have free immigration issues How much immigration can there be you have free trade which is just trade between people in different countries And then you have foreign investment issues and those are all distinct And people confuse these issues and they usually confuse them because they don't understand the difference or because They want to push one policy over the other and so for example Intellectual property is a big big issue from the West and from the US Like Hollywood and the pharmaceutical companies. They want American style or Western style intellectual property pushed onto the other countries now How do they do that? How do you push it onto another country well you could make it a condition of a Agreement right and the agreement could be an international trade agreement or it can be a immigration agreement Or it could be a all all these kinds of things the you know the The monetary organizations that you the United Nations a human rights organizations so But the the bottom line is that There's a confusion because most people are very naive about these issues and the people that are experts in them And they're usually academic or governmental experts for What five ten fifteen years of their career? They understand the system very well right so They can manipulate it because most people don't understand what they're talking about So for example, they will say that well if I mean Donald Trump does this In the intuitive way like he says well China is ripping us off or stealing our IP so therefore So he uses that to manipulate the the trade deals with them Right, but okay, if you understand the way that law works and property rights work and IP works You'll see that Intellectual property protection has almost nothing to do with Free trade between countries right So of course they use this they they use it as an excuse so it's like Donald Trump will say well we can Impose tariffs on China and use it as a bargaining chip because they're stealing our IP But IP theft even if it's really theft is a local issue. It's like a foreign investment Issue it's not a trade issue. It's a foreign investment issue And that's an issue that every country agrees that every other country has the right to make a decision upon like the United States can decide Which foreign country nationals can invest in the US? Europeans French Chinese Whatever they can make a decision about who can invest in their country Singapore Hong Kong, whatever So that's in it. That's a local investment issue, right? That's a property rights issue And so all these things are mingled together for political reasons I don't know if I answered your question, but I think that So if we could if we could really separate the investment aspect of these treaties and just have that that would be perfectly legitimate As long as nation states are still around Well, so my view is that it would be purely a protection of property on the international plane between nation states and there is no there is no There is no fancy stuff that goes that goes beyond just the protection of property That would be perfectly Is that I mean So so my personal view is that By and large by and large over the last 70 years the Slow movement of the world trading system towards more trade of goods and services between nations has been a good thing, okay? I Don't as a libertarian. I don't think it should have been managed Right. It shouldn't have been like. Oh We can have this much and there should be these conditions But still there's been a gradual movement towards free trade of services and goods And there's also at the same time been a gradual movement towards Opening of regimes towards for an event if we call it FDI foreign direct investment I think these are all good things But I think they should not be completed So It's in the interest of Western powers and developed nations and developing nations and The southern nations as we call them. It's all in their interest to have open Free trade right to basically lower tariffs But it's also in their interest to lower barriers to foreign direct investment That is investment from outsiders who want to open factories or invest in their countries But the problem is that they always almost always impose conditions upon this So for just for example this There is essentially my point because they impose conditions Would we be better off without any of these investment treaties or is that still a lesser evil? Compared to having nothing and being at the mercy of the state in which you're investing That that's a that's a that's an interesting question I don't know if I am competent to answer that my my my my intuition my feeling is that Over the last 70 years Basically, even though I'm opposed to managed trade and the way the government has done it Things have gradually Opened up and they've made the world more interconnected and I think that's a good thing And in fact, this might be the only thing that prevents us from going into Crazy times right now, right because we're so interdependent I mean you have the Americans saying that oh, we're dependent upon Chinese supply chains for Apple products or whatever and Maybe a company would diversify or whatever, but on the other hand, it's good that we have this interconnection so that You know, we don't want to nuke each other. We don't want to have war with each other We know that that would result in chaos. No one is self-sufficient. No one is independent and The division of labor and the specialization of laborers has been spread and I think that's Been a roughly a good thing, but it's been accompanied by this idea that the government Manages it right and so that's the big problem the government manages it and So at one hand it makes us richer on the other hand It makes us more dependent upon the idea that the government has to be in control So I can't I can't say which one I think is predominant What do you think? Thank you very much Thank you very much. I would probably leave the floor for other people to ask you questions I just wanted to make a brief comment We could very well have ended up with a very very centralized international investment regime Because we had things like the Havana Charter in the 1950s, which thankfully failed So I personally think that the way it is right now in a very decentralized manner where decisions they decide for themselves and you have many Variations of investment rate is I think that's a good thing I mean it still it would have been better if the states didn't manage it as you said But it's better than a centralized management that we could have got Under things like the international trade organization and and Havana Charter, but thank you for answers Stefan. Thank you Stephen I had a question for you Go ahead. All right Can you hear me? I do All right, cool. So my question has to do with It's a more of a theoretical question. It has to do with You know the foundations of Austrian economics and praxeology Now I've known for a while that there's been a controversy within the Austrian school Regarding the concept of time preference and how you know traditional pure time preference theory is justified You know recently I heard Bob Murphy talk on the Tom Wood Show about this and I went back and just went over his Arguments where I can find them on the internet Now it appears to me that The opposition to the idea of pure time preference stems from a misunderstanding Not not simply of the ideas of you know Goods and ends and means and things like that But also possibly of the nature of time itself from a praxeological standpoint So I just wanted to first ask you Whether you've kept up with this debate within the Austrian school and what your view is in my hunch is that you probably agree with the the traditional view of Time preference the pure time preference theory of interest, but I'd love to hear your take on this hmm Well, I Sure, I don't hold myself out as an expert on certain topics I Follow this and I have followed it The particular thing you're talking about it sounds familiar, but I'm not sure if I'm up on it If you want to update me more I'm up to it. I do have some thoughts on To me it's about the nature of the distinction between Economic analysis right fundamental primordial economic concepts and Normative concepts with people and legal which people conflate together and Then so so then we get to this issue of scarcity and then time and so to me time is one of the most Fascinating concepts that Affects all of this And I have a feeling there are people that have written on this and scattered ways that I am not Sufficiently familiar with that I could be but on the other hand, I feel like everyone that writes on it Disappoints me so my view on time is that time is Time is not so I like I would personally And again, you asked me a question. So I'm answering time is not a fourth dimension in physics Okay, it's not another dimension and in economics. It I don't think time is a scarce resource. I Just think time is a concept that we develop that Explains the flow of events the fact that things happen after each other in other words the fact that there is causation or causality and so I Don't think that time Is a thing that exists in The way that the other resources exist that we Categorize in economic terms and that we Protect by legal Regimes right like scarce resources or property rights So to me time is just a concept we use to explain The flow the succession of events So I think that you're in danger of The fallacy of reification right where you like you Conceptualize something that helps you explain some phenomena, but then you think of it as a real existing physical thing So I don't But again, I'm not a physicist. I'm not an expert. I don't think time Is the fourth dimensional thing that exists? Or a resource that you can own If that's what you're asking Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. I mean the I guess the What this turns on? Is whether the concept of time preference is something that logically follows from the action axiom If I understand correctly Bob Murphy denies this and there are others. I mean, I think we don't hold has also written on this and What I've heard from Bob Murphy and what I understand of his view is that he says if there's such a thing as Time preference that is that people Prefer things sooner rather than later. Why not construct a Concept of proximity preference and say that people prefer things that are closer to them rather things that are far away You know, so, yeah I'll give you my my thoughts on it So fact of acting means that you act at a certain point in time, right and so You could say that it in the luxury really demonstrates that you prefer the present over the future But in a way that's unavoidable because some things have to be in the future or some are in the present So I'm not sure if that's actually true like It's like I think maybe if you read Hoppe's article like explaining why in difference analysis like is flawed Like you could like the whole Baridians ass thing But like the mule that like it's looking at a bail of hay on the left and the right everything's the same And he doesn't choose so that shows he's demonstrating indifference Like Hoppe's argument is that like no you can never demonstrate indifference I Think maybe an extension of that argument Hoppe's analysis of it of indifference analysis could be applied to time preference theory because You could never You could you can only act for what is available at the present, right? So interest rates and things like that arise from the fact that you defer your consumption based upon your vision of the future Right in the way you structure production and things like that But you can never really demonstrate that you're acting right now for something 10 years from now I mean it might happen, but you can how can you demonstrate that in the current? Time so I'm I mean I'm I'm just personally really skeptical of this whole idea of time Like I had a I was just revisiting a lecture I had with Jeff Tucker and Stefan Mollin knew some other guys Here in Texas about seven eight nine years ago It's called Liberty on the pines and we were talking about I mean Whether time is a scarce resource and I made the comment that well time is scarce because As far as we know we only have so much of it in our lives. So it's got aspects of scarcity and Tucker said Stefan I thought you said that you don't think time is a scarce resource and I said well, you're right I don't think it's a scarce resource per se. In other words Time is gonna go on no matter what you do. It's just gonna flow. It's a flow of events I mean if you want to be scientific about it and be a physicist or a faux physicist you could say oh, it's a second law of thermodynamics or whatever but really from a from a human action practical logical point of view what we know is that We envision the future and we act now to try to make a causal change that will have an effect in the future That's the basic structure, right? So to me time has to be based upon that practical logical structure So to me time just means The fact that some things happen after the other or there's some things cause the other Right, so I'm not that deep on this to be honest So I admit that other people pretend to be deeper, but that's my my perspective I do not think of time as another dimension or as a scarce resource that you can own Okay, well that makes sense. I I don't want to take up too much time because I know there's probably others. No take your time. Go ahead. Just Well, I just wanted to just Give my my take on this because to me It appears that there is a like a fundamental misunderstanding amongst a Lot of Austrian economists regarding what time actually is because I I Think I've read Hans Hermann Hoppe as well Mentioned that time is a factor of production. It's one of the means That's used in the production of goods and I think that in man economy and state Murray Rothbard It says something, you know to this effect that time is I Forget the term that he used. I believe he says that time is a nonspecific Factor of production to me it just appears that That While time is Something that goes into production. It's not that time is a means that's separate from other Goods that we use in the production of any good It's just that we have certain time units of goods which we use in the Production of any good which is unavoidable. I mean, we only have if you look at the totality of a person's life That's say 70 years. That's However, you want to divide that up in terms of time. That's 70 year units of that person's life Or you know if if a college kid was doing his homework and that took two hours and it required certain resources primarily his own body Then we can say that that production process takes two body units or pardon me to our body units In order to complete that process so I think that This is an important thing for people who are using the practical method to be clear on and I know I'm not articulating this the best way, but I think that the Conception of time and what it means when we when we talk about time something that we need to be very clear on in order to Avoid a lot of these misunderstandings and misconceptions And confusions, you know as as we just go about praxeology, um I can't disagree. I actually Agree that more work needs to be done on clarifying these concepts and like so Austrians and other economists will use Interchangeable somewhat interchangeable terms and concepts like like you said factor or asset or good and I do think that so When you say time is a factor. Yeah, it's not clear what that means like so they they lump together factors of production Things that are scarce things that you have to To assemble to make your final product happen According to the way that you want it to happen productively, right? And so that could be a certain amount of So you could say it's a certain amount of time because you envision that okay, this would take me 2.5 years to do so you could say that time is a factor and We also have to have 10 and tungsten and labor and resources and energy and time and Whatever But to me, it's just like a verbal description from the entrepreneur's point of view of how he envisions accomplishing his task doesn't mean that it's scientifically Excuse me or economically accurate as An outside description of what he did to accomplish his goals. I mean basically from praxeology You us you you manipulate scarce resources you you employ your means To achieve your ends like we know that is true because that's the structure of human action But does that mean that time is one of the The means really just because we say that there's a difference between what we call super abundant and Merely abundant or less abundant resources Right a cataclysm difference like so for example information is called super abundant because anyone who gets the information or a pattern or Recipe or knowledge about how to use a certain factor that information could be used forever In a way, it's super abundant, right? Compared to the use of a resource like a location on the earth like a factory or the amount of Ten or lead or gold or or oil or whatever resource we're talking about, right? Those are scarce by physical nature and by subjective human appraisement Right, and so we have to distinguish all these things And when we lump them together because we notice a commonality like Okay, as an entrepreneur as a fact as an investor as an employer I have to take into account of the scarcity of time and The uncertainty of the future and I have to take into account My supply of ten and lead and Meat or whatever whatever whatever it is and my my factory You you do all these things practically to make To yield an achievement right to yield an end but just because an entrepreneur does that and has to do that to Have a successful result Doesn't mean that time is a scarce resource just because you know, he has to do it now rather than later. I Mean if you don't do it now, when are you gonna do it? You got to do it at some point in time so this concept of time Factors in and it factors into interest rates and the conception that we have is living human beings like we have we have We have parents. We have grandparents. We have ancestors. We have children We have grandchildren. We have future progeny that we all think about that formats the way we live our lives That's fine time formats our thinking process Anyway, that's all I have to say about this for a second That that makes sense. I hold a similar view. Thanks. Thanks again stuff. You're welcome. Thank you for talking anyone else Can I ask a question? Sure Actually, it's not mine have it here in the chat. So I just read it What do you think about risk in relation to viruses Would you agree with Mike humorous argument that a significant risk of contagion is enough to qualify as aggression? So I guess this is the danger of saying ask anything, right? Look, there's lots of things that are hard for lots of us to know I have my own opinions and I'll spill them out in a second Look, if you read Robert Nozick His entire argument for the state is based upon this idea of risk like at a certain point If you don't join the the dominant crowd you pose too much of a risk and we can force you to join our club And then the state arises from that excuse me the minimal state to be sure but the state Now to me humor is like a modern He's a modern iteration of this idea He's got libertarian and anarchist sensibilities, but he has in empiricist utilitarian Unprincipled mindset, I would say So I like him personally. I like some of what he's written He's smart but I'm not a fan of his kind of 60s go-go approach like I mean at least Nozick did it a certain way So Humor I have lots of issues with the The consequentialist you utilitarian Like explicitly anti-principled approach of some of these these types like humor Like like for example, I've talked to him and I've read his stuff and Are you against intellectual property? I Don't know. I have no opinion. I mean, how can you write a book like this and and Speak out and pretend to have some knowledge and Have no opinion about patent and copyright law It can't just be a matter of like well, we'll figure it out someday It's like saying Okay, well Jewish extermination concentration camps dropping nuclear bombs over Japan Yeah, you can debate every one of those things. Okay. Well, you can debate anything or how about? shadow slavery, how about black slavery in the u.s. Well, I Well, okay, maybe blacks were inferior. Maybe who's gonna pick the cotton? I mean you can come up with any kind of argument for these kind of things So at a certain point, I think you need to Figure out what your principles are and my principles as a libertarian and as an Austrian are Individual rights property rights First use principle that kind of thing You know, you can have lots of edge cases gray areas difficult issues I don't doubt that but that doesn't mean that everything is up to this utilitarian gravely analysis where we just sort of like Never never ever ever settle on any principle view of anything at all like, I don't know maybe a kill be maybe Maybe a had a right to Kobe or maybe had a reason to kill B You never know There's a billion You know things that could come into play So I don't know I probably got distracted by your question, but go ahead Well, okay, thanks. Oh Stefan Hello Nice to talk with you again. Have you been all is good. Who's this? It's Nate the volunteers. Oh, I interviewed you back in January All right, that sounds that sounds right. I'm sorry for not recognizing your voice No, it's all good. It's all good. So, um, I do have a question in regards to quite a bit of Several arguments that I've had with both libertarians and anarchists in regards to the left-right paradigm which I believe that Any libertarian if they have connected any of the dots should reject in its entirety I've always argued that Libertarianism is neither left nor right and the left the left and right are two wings of the same bird of prey and the libertarians should Get off of that paradigm and run away from that bird of prey as fast as they can before it eats basically eats you alive Do you think that it is a huge misconception to Frame libertarianism as either left or right. Hmm. Well, what do you think? I think so Well, I mean I've been a libertarian for 30 years and what attracted me to it from the beginning was this Orthogonal breaking out of the left-right spectrum boundaries, right the The conventional wisdom that like oh your left or right. I think the left-right thing is total total BS and Yeah, so I think that libertarians who insist on Framing everything and well everything everyone else insists on framing it left-right terms and libertarian shouldn't go along with that I mean our whole our whole purpose is to say that the left-right spectrum is not the right way to look at Politics and interpersonal relationships Right, I Mean the no one chart and the these two these 2d attempts to sort of break out of the left-right spectrum in the 70s or 80s whenever they came about They were trying to say that we're not The spectrum is not correct. And in fact, I think that the spectrum Helps both sides of the mainstream like because they can they can stick to their sides You know the left and the right and they can try to say that they're distinct from each other, but our whole MO is libertarians say that Dude, I if I'm talking to a conservative, I am way more conservative than you are in terms of say economic rights And if I talk to a lefty, I Am way more liberal than you are in terms of liberal values civil liberties things like that So you can as a libertarian you can outdo either one of these now. Why is that? it's not because I mean you couldn't put us on the left-right spectrum How can you be more left than a lefty and we're right than a righty? Unless it the circle closes back on itself in which case it's not linear and you know So yeah, I reject the whole spectrum. I think it's mostly nonsense. I Mean you could come up with two three four five seven dimensions of Ways that you want to categorize people and they might all be conceptually Legitimate But it wouldn't just be left and right. That's just two of the of the dozen For the libertarian the main spectrum that matters is aggression versus non-aggression Respect for private property rights in an institutional way versus Versus lack of respect and so You could you could map these things on each other and multidimensional Analyses and that's interesting It's not always tactically useful because Left and right people want to see the world in their terms, right? Anyway, that's my rambling thoughts. Thanks. Thanks for What do you think? I mean you could talk to I mean I'm not the only you could what do you think Nate? Oh Yeah well, I've always framed libertarianism as Just respect for self-ownership property rights non-aggression and To tie it all in together as freedom of association Course I Often get into of course. I usually when I define it that way I I I often, you know run into those Who say they are libertarians and then? Once I once I shared that definition to them you know, they often reveal themselves as status in some sort of way and There's a few a few a few people that I've run into have basically admitted that They're not really for individual Individualism or individual rights if I'm if I'm framing it correctly that is But I've always But I I guess what I'm trying to say is I've always viewed libertarianism as the as the right of The right of the individual above all Essentially and I think and I've read your article on Mises called what is a libertarian and That that was pretty much what my grasp on the whole thing was in regards to how you Define libertarianism or how you advocate it Because whenever I'm because whenever I am talking about libertarianism in general I Kind of take inspiration from Say Eric July Larkin Rose or blood of the brave You know who blood of the bravest No, I know the others but not that one. He's a he's a he's another and cap. He's a hip-hop rapper So I've interviewed him as well You know when I'm when I'm talking like those three I just I Just keep it real and not try to muddle down the whole concept of libertarianism to try to try to appeal to others or What do you call it Eric July mentioned this several times. So what what is it called again? It's not it's not virtue Signoing it's counter signaling. There we go. So I don't try to counter signal. I don't try to muddle stuff down. I just Advocate for what it really is And I and I seem to see quite an epidemic of it within libertarian circles Whether it's anarchist or not. I hear you. I hear you Well, so today's This is an experiment to see how it would go and if people are interested I might do this on a repeated basis I don't know if you guys have any opinions Open to them. Well, this is great actually it's great to Get to talk to you up to now. I really only you know read your work or heard you speak when you're interviewed On various podcasts, but I actually I would love If you were to make this a regular thing that would be wonderful I may do that. Thanks for the feedback Yeah, I would I would love to have a Lot of conversations with you because I always learn something new whenever I read your Columns and Watch your interviews. All right. Well, thanks. Do you think? Midday or do you think nighttime? What it's the best time to do something like this probably midday US time. I Think this time is good since other European people it might be late for European people that's and Play it for US people. So maybe even a little earlier like 10 or 11 a.m. US time so that it's You know, I think this was a good time. Okay. Yeah, I think I think this was a good time, too Okay All right. Well, I'm gonna let it go a couple hours earlier like you said All right, I'll think about it Maybe fun we all need to get out and talk and next time everyone else can chat and I'll try to figure out the zoom thing and get everyone to Collaborate more Appreciate it Hi, Stefan. Can you hear me? I? I do Yeah, so thank you for the stalk. I wanted to comment about zoom so I suggest you try Jitzi. It's an open source and more secure alternative to zoom which is proprietary and it's not very good So you might want to look into that Why don't you send me a link and I'll take a look I Sent a link in the reply to your tweet where you announced the stream Okay, perfect. Thank you and There is also a question if you care to answer Sure, so In the beginning of the talk you somebody asked you about Moral obligations towards children where the parents have this obligation So I wondered what you think of anti-natalism So it's essentially a position that it's immoral to create life because you doom a person to suffer inevitably and It's most commonly argued by David Beneter. He is an analytical philosopher. Maybe I know of him. I Mean, I never I've never heard that view although. I'm not surprised that it exists anti anti bent. What is it anti-benetalism? It's anti-natalism anti-natalism Um, I wonder if it's anti-natalism anti-natalism. Yes, maybe I'm not Yeah, um, I mean the problem with that view is that Every action that we humans take and from so from my point of view every action that we take Can have unforeseen consequences, right and can cause things to happen And if you Strictly link your actions to causes to responsibility then Everything you do you're responsible for Which is the strict liability view which I actually disagree with in the law, right? Like if you own a dog and the dog Runs a mile and bites someone on the arm. Oh Is your you own the dog so you're responsible for what the dog does Now in a sense, I agree with an aspect of this Philosophy in that I do believe that if you create a child Which some of us do as parents and the child is a dependent being initially and has needs Yeah, so I think that the parents have an Positive obligation to take care of the child now I guess you could argue that because the world is uncertain and the future is uncertain You could never guarantee that you could even do that even if you live alone in the prairie and You have three children and you have you know a farm You never know. Maybe they're a plague would come and or more rotters would come and You couldn't take care of your children. Um, I don't I just I'm not persuaded by that view I don't think that there's anything Metaphysically wrong with creating a life in the world That sparks a new life Because that's no different than saying that you take an action that causes something to happen Things change because of your actions So in the end, I think you can only take responsibility for a certain small Locusts of actions around your direct Action which is legally what the idea of proximate causes about like what are you approximately like? Approximately means closeness or distance or like what do you cause to happen? so if Steve Jobs creates the iPhone and 17 years later some child dies because You know a mother was distracted checking her Her cell phone messages on her iPhone while driving And ran over a child or whatever Yeah, you could say That's what we call a cause in fact like with a but for cause like without Steve Jobs creating the iPhone this wouldn't have happened Although you can't really even say that because maybe someone else would created it But I think that's too far. I just I think that at a certain point We all live among each other in society and living in General has risks because we live among people that have free will and they can choose to do whatever they want and They're their behavior is therefore unpredictable and the future is also uncertain and unpredictable So everything that every human ever does every actor ever does always has a risk of Affecting the future harming other people So that that mere risk can't be enough to say that we shouldn't act Because It would just mean that we have to all commit suicide Which to me is like pointless and unrealistic and fights the proposition in the first place because If our lives don't matter Why do the lives of our future progeny that we might endanger matter like the whole thing is a Risk game So I guess I'm not persuaded by this although I haven't heard of this particular sect Thank you for your play So I'd say that it doesn't essentially argue about Consequences of your actions as you said the view that Benatar takes for example is about a symmetry between play a pain and pleasure in which he essentially argues that the state of non-existence is always better because the absence of pain is good even if good is not enjoyed by anyone and The absence of pleasure is not bad unless there is somebody for whom this absence is the deprivation and on the other hand It's a presence of pain is bad and if you create life you necessarily expose Whoever you create to the possibility of pain well So it's like a comparison between two states as a state of non-existence and Existence and you always choose Not to create people. I mean it's not it's not about killing yourself It's about not creating you like Yeah, but it in a way it is because yeah, so I I mean one of my personal I mean, I'm not a religious believer And one of my arguments was always that the idea that Okay, there's a god who creates these beings and they have no choice but to just be thrust into existence and Some of them will choose to be evil and be condemned to hell and eternal punishment like according to the Christian or the standard, you know Theology But to me that always seemed Well, number one disproportionate like Even if you're Hitler and you kill So many people at a certain point If you have an infinite universe to work your sins out, okay, you finally pay your debts. I don't know Right. So like the idea of eternal punishment never made sense to me So but but the idea that you could create a being that Had to choose whether to be good or bad now the Christians will say oh well, you have a choice You have a chance. You're given you're given a helping hand whatever but the point is For the guy that chose the worst life of all right to be a murderer to be a bad father To go to hell at the end of his life He would have been better off never having been created So how could a good God create a guy like that? Like what's the point? So my argument initially as a as a as a smart-ass 19 year old was oh Well, that means that everyone that you think is bad is really a Robot like that's a God robot like like God never creates really bad people like all the people you think are bad or just Robots God made that give us a fake choice But then if you figure that out then you're in danger of the God mafia make the whole thing makes no sense I mean it devolves into You could maybe make a movie out of it or something but So I kind of sense the feeling of this idea. I just I don't think that Having a baby in today's real world is a horrific crime Like it would be to create a new soul Who is doomed to hell forever? Because you know it because you're omnipotent like we're not actually God like God Should know better. He does know better. He's omnipotent. He's omniscient He makes a soul that he knows is doomed to hell forever and To me that's in a way. I Could see an argument that that's unforgivable But but that doesn't apply to our actions as non-gods because we're not gods Right. All we do is estimate the future. No, go ahead. Sorry. You think that a religious argument is more strong here I get it but So you compare us to God that he knows for certain about Hell and so on but we also know that if we create life as a person necessarily will die and will suffer from it and he is friends and relatives will suffer from as loss at least at least we know that Yeah, it's something like that. I mean like in a sense as far as we know all life comes into being at a certain point and expires at a certain point and The if there's a conscious Life form behind that That type of life like humans then they will experience a consciousness and they will experience certain Pleasures and pains if you want to simplify it and That's that's inevitable I mean it's it's it's I don't see how that could be Be avoided In avoidable part of what it means to be alive if you're conscious So any conscious being will always have a finite lifespan and will experience certain Good things and bad things and some will be better or worse than others by certain Human metrics and so that's just an Inessential an essential part of life So if you're opposed to any suffering, let's say or creating a new being that has suffering then You're opposed to life per se and again Ultimately that leads to nihilism or some kind of What like the the hemp to movement the what is my friend Nina pale is part of this the Voluntary human extinction movement or something like just yeah, it exists But I don't argue on the same grounds and then there are some radical environmental group So the reasoning is quite different from the academic philosophy Interesting, I don't I don't know much about it. I all I know is what I just said to be honest Well, thanks for that anyway Thank you Could I just say something very quickly regarding this? sure Now I don't presume to be an expert on Antinatalism or what you know the basic argument is from what I understand. It's the idea that It's unethical to bring a human life into existence for whatever reason and it just seems to me that the problem with that argument Is one that has to do with the philosophy of human language more than it has to do with metaphysics because In order for Something to be unjust to a being it would have to have been done to that being But the problem is that a being does not exist before they're brought into existence So before I was born I didn't actually exist so My coming into existence was not something that was done to me by my parents because you know, I didn't exist for them To do anything to me before I was born So it's only after somebody is born that I think you can talk about even justices or injustices So the actual act of creating a being cannot be just for unjust It has to be treated as an amoral action is what I think I mean a lot of you know philosophers a lot of philosophers have Especially I think Wittgenstein have attacked metaphysics as basically being nonsense, which just arises out of the imprecise and careless use of language, and so I think it's it's something that Needs to be taken seriously and this is why I you know initially brought up the The concept of time because I'm becoming more and more sensitive as I think more about Not just praxeology and Austrian economics, but also libertarianism and the foundational ideas of Morality and I have a keen interest in argumentation ethics as well, and I think that a lot of the Problems that seem to be Irresolvable I Think we can make quite a bit of progress if we see these as problems arising from our use of language Rather than problems as such. So that's just my two cents interesting anyone else because I think if not I'll end this shortly and think about the best way to Maybe repeat this or restart this in a few days or next week or something like that But I welcome any feedback or comments on what might be a good idea to do this We'll see the chat box the chat People are typing up commons. I see it now. Yeah, I can see it Okay But I wasn't looking at it during the thing. Yeah If I'm good, I ask one more question Sure If you had the opportunity and this is actually something that I am probably going to do in the coming week week or weeks If you had the opportunity to talk to our decision maker, it's a political decision maker or other decision maker About libertarianism and Austrian economics Somebody who has absolutely no idea of what this is and you had maybe an hour or two hours to give a presentation to him about libertarianism and Austrian economics For the purposes of decision-making. I mean, this is somebody maybe let's say who's was actually controlling the lives of others But what would you where would you start and how would you structure it? I know that that's that could be a bit complicated. I need to think about it myself But we would you have any any starting points on your in the way you think Well, and I'm open to anyone else's views, but I'll tell you quickly. First of all, I'm I'm not persuaded that Like so, I think there's there's an entrenched state which you can call the deep state Right. It's not the the politicians are not always the ones that are the ones that matter The state will persist in most countries. There's a government even if there's no government You know what I mean? There's a state even if the government fails So there's a bureaucracy. There's a permanent class of workers that maintain the state I tend to think that the current politicians like the congressman The president these guys are just figureheads that are temporary. They come in and out So I'm not sure who am I talking to am I talking to these guys? Or am I talking to the guys that are in the deep state? I think the guys in the deep state don't care because they Want to maintain their power and their and their and their and their their salary basically to be honest If I talk to an opinion maker so-called like a Donald Trump or a Congressman I Mean as a libertarian I would choose the things that either or the highest value or the ones that I thought could have the most effect Now for me personally, I Would focus on patent and copyright because I think that they are the two intellectual property basically even though everyone knows oh can sell us all up on this It's not I'm not up on this because I happen to know about it. It's the other way around I mean it really is one of the most dangerous things Me yeah, I could talk to Rand Paul about the drug war, but he pretty much already knows right I Could talk to Donald Trump. Okay, you should legalize marijuana and if you legalize marijuana you probably will win the next election But if you don't you're gonna lose to zombie Joe Biden So there are simple issues right To me it's it's really all about intellectual property, but I'm under no illusions that We can make these intellectual arguments to enough of the populace to make a difference, but Ultimately I do think that like okay, so we have the drug war we have public education We have real war. We have the military. We have welfare. We have the central bank at the Federal Reserve All these things are so entrenched. It's so despairing to think of how you can talk these people Out of it who have it an interest in maintaining it right because they're basically Employed by it or supported by it So it's difficult. I mean you can't talk a public teacher out of supporting public schools Government teacher, you know, you can't talk a you know and so The same thing is true, but so for me it would be Let's just scale back patent and copyright law and let innovation work its magic and help the free market Overcome the obstacles that you guys are putting on us and your other laws taxes regulations, whatever So to me it would be patent and copyright To give a Predictable can sell I answer sorry Okay, thank you very much. I was thinking more about going on the lines of monetary policy because that's something that I understand better So I guess I guess we always go go and talk about what we understand and and I think that the central bankings Is is One of the biggest problems because it helps the state finance its activities, right? and it causes inflation and it a dominates the entire the entire culture and I think there's a great essay which any of you if you haven't read it It's it's it's by oh who's the he's one of our Austrian fellow travelers the literature guy who wrote the the It's about Paul Cantor Paul Cantor and Thomas Mann and inflation Thomas Mann and hyperinflation And not just that some of the stuff by Gito Hozman, but it's about how this inflation mentality Corrupts our entire culture It sounds like a throwaway thing, but I think it really does have a big influence on How the entire society acts and reacts and why we save and we don't save and why In a in us in a co vid thing like we have right now. Everyone is unprepared for like no one has two weeks four weeks three months of savings Because everyone's living hand to mouth because of inflation so hyperinflation or inflation like we have now I Think has a significant impact on society So in a way, I would say yeah, you know if I could reform one thing it might be this Federal Reserve. I Don't know. It's hard to say Patent law Federal Reserve public education income tax War the drug war They're also horrible It's hard to say which one Tactically you should reform first if you had that You know that wizard wand choice. I was thinking more on the lines of Playing their own game in the sense giving them the the sort of points that they would like to win in a popularity contest And then trying to find points in That in that week, I think most of us would be persuaded to do anything that would have any positive effect I think it's it's all pretty hopeless to be honest not to be pessimistic Anyway, all right guys, I'm gonna I'm gonna go now, but we'll do this again soon if If it makes sense Thanks, everybody Thanks for doing this stuff. Thank you guys