 Let's jump in. First, a Facebook story. So Tuesday, I did this very long analysis of Facebook and what was going on with the whistleblower and the leaks and the kind of fallout from all of that. I thought it was a pretty good show. So hopefully if you haven't watched it, you will go back to watch it because I thought we'd have a lot of ground and it was good stuff. Anyway, yesterday and today we've gotten Zuckerberg's response to the whole leaking whistleblower stuff, to the demands that Facebook be more socially responsible. You know, we got his response, the idea of Facebook caring less about profit. So first of all, Zuckerberg told us, not me, the press, he put out a press release statement that it's not true that Facebook cares about profits more than about people, whatever the hell that means. Not at all. They're not interested in profits. They really care like people and they really care about people and they really want to help people and they really want to be nice to people. And they want you to know that they really want to be nice to people and it's not, not, not Zuckerberg begs about profits. This is why they get into trouble because of course it's about profits. Just admit it and be proud of it. Profits are a good thing, not a bad thing to run away from. Profits are a sign, a measurement of what you're on. What are they a sign of? They're sign of value creation. So we will not change the world until our leaders, our business leaders start standing up proudly for the profit motive, for profit, for making money. Stop apologizing for it. Stop pretending that you're not doing it. So that's the first thing about Zuckerberg. The second is, and the main part of his letter is, is something he repeated, something he said before. Basically, Zuckerberg's response to the criticism is this, look, obviously you guys don't like what we do. We don't know how to fix it. We don't know how to do better. So the only way to solve the problem, the only way to solve this problem of, I don't know, polarization and people living in, in bubbles and fake news and, and misinformation and teenage girls not liking their bodies or whatever. On Instagram. The only way to solve this problem is for the government to regulate it. Literally, this is, this is Zuckerberg's response. Zuckerberg basically in the letter response to the whole issue of the whistleblower is begging, asking for government to step in and regulate what he does, control what he does. Because he can't. Because he doesn't know how to. Because he's getting conflicting messages from different regulatory agencies from the left and the right from Democrats and Republicans. Because that conflicts with the profit motive. And he doesn't know what to do. So he wants government to step in and regulate him. Now, this is just unbelievable to me. He was a smart, intelligent, knowledgeable man who runs a massive company and from every indication in the world does a phenomenal job at it. Smart, went to Harvard and he really believes, he really believes that his company and the world are better off by being regulated. Yes, I know that the argument is that he can afford the regulations, but his competitors can't. But does he realize that regulations would take the fun out of it? Does he realize that one regulation start, they never end? Does he realize that once those regulations start, a company which he has insisted on maintaining voting control of will no longer be his. It'll be the regulators. Yeah, he can pretend it's his. He can pretend it's his as long as he plays nice and as long as he plays by the regulation. But he'll discover very quickly it's not his. Not his to make decisions, not his to guide, to shape, to form once he succumbs to those regulations. Regulations would be a slow, not an immediate death, a slow death, a slow suicide, since he's asking for the regulations of Facebook and Zuckerberg. But this is the position the state places. Businessmen, they being in front of them, they scold them, they wag their fingers at them, they demand results. They demonize them, they threaten them with all kinds of things. And some of these businessmen, morally weak as many of them are, say, okay, you win. Regulate me, please just get off my back. Any of what they don't realize is once they're regulated, they'll never be off your back. You're basically hitching them to your back. You're basically now going to drag them on your back forever. So it is a, I think it's a stat state of the world where this is the approach businessmen take. It's time for them to stand up and defend themselves, to be proud of their achievements, proud of the money they make, tell government to get off, leave them alone, go away. Maybe then we have a chance. Maybe then we have a chance. But it's that's what it's going to take to change the culture. It's going to take businessmen doing exactly that. And until they do it, the culture won't change. The culture needs leadership. The leadership at this point cannot, will not come from the intellectuals. And maybe the few intellectuals, the few good intellectuals can influence businessmen because they in America, not in Europe, not in Asia, not anywhere else, but in America, they the businessmen can actually have a massive cultural impact. We still admire business. We still admire profit making to some extent in this country. All right. So just wanted to put that in and not in their title, but I thought it was important to talk about it. Emiliano, I'll take this question because it's on the topic. If profits are measurement of value created, is it the wealth of murderous drug traffickers assigned that created value on drugs or form of suicide? No, but drugs are not a market, right? Drugs don't appear in the market. The whole point is that you couldn't make huge amounts of profits if drugs were legal as they should be. In a true free market where drugs are legal, there is no profitability to them. They become a commodity. It's easy to make cocaine. It's easy to make pot. It's easy to make heroin. Anybody can do it. Competition drives profits basically as lowest to zero. The only reason they have high profits is because the government is giving them a monopoly that they have gained by force. They get rewarded, quote, rewarded for taking on the risk of engaging in illegal activities. If drugs were legal, the risk would be zero. The profits would be zero. Emiliano asked, what about casino? A casino provides entertainment. Now it's true that from an objective perspective, the value you receive or some people see at a casino is not a real value. But it is to the people playing. You, from the side, can say, you're ruining the life. This is not good for you. But for them, from their perspective, from their personal values, you know, this is a value. So yes, the casinos are creating a value for the people using it. It might be from our perspective, from a philosophical perspective, a bad value, a disvalue, an anti-life value. But it's still a value to the people using it. So, and indeed in a rational society, in a rational society, there would be a lot fewer people gambling. Regularly gambling is an addiction. Gambling against the casino constantly is non-rational. It's anti-rational. You could go on and on. Tobacco is the same thing. You know, people, rational people choose to smoke. Now you could say, it's not good for you. Don't do it. It's irrational. But they're getting a value from it. You don't get to dictate other people's values. And the market is not there to judge. This is rational. This is irrational. You know, that's for philosophers. And that's for moralists. And that's for educators. And that's for intellectual leaders to say, hey, you shouldn't smoke. Hey, you really shouldn't take drugs. Hey, you shouldn't go to prostitutes. Hey, you shouldn't use whatever tobacco. And individuals, morality is the responsibility of individuals. But you cannot say that the company is not providing something, a value to the person. You might say the person is wrong to value this thing. But economics is not normative in that sense. Economics does not tell people these are the values you should have. That's to some extent. And in the end, I think marketing does that and, you know, better companies and competition does that to some extent. The market says, here's stuff you might want or things that people have always wanted and maybe shouldn't want. Here's stuff you want. We'll provide it for you. For a price. Value for value. It's still value creating in the broad sense of value is that which one acts to gain or keep, not value in the sense of pro-life that you should, should rather than do act to gain or keep. The market does not provide you the should. Thank you for listening or watching the Iran Brook show. If you'd like to support the show, we make it as easy as possible for you to trade with me. You get value from listening. You get value from watching. Show your appreciation. You can do that by going to iranbrookshow.com. I go to Patreon, subscribe star locals and just making a appropriate contribution on any one of those, any one of those channels. Also, if you'd like to see the Iran book show grow, please consider sharing our content and of course subscribe. Press that little bell button right down there on YouTube so that you get an announcement when we go live. And for those of you who already subscribers and those of you who already supporters of the show, thank you. I very much appreciate it.