 And we are going to contemplate today how amazing life is on planet Earth right now. All over planet Earth. People, human beings, like you and me, or not like you and me, but human beings here, we've got low legard in the Gulf, right, in the Gulf. A very different culture than what many of us are living in. We've got Europeans here, we've got people from all over the world listening. And there's a lot of people not listening, billions of them. And their life is better today from a material perspective than life on planet Earth has ever been. We live in the richest period in human history. We live from a violence perspective in the safest period, pretty much, in human history. There are fewer wars, there are fewer people dying at the hands of their own government, at the hands of civil wars, at the hands of violence, including crime. We live, most of humanity today, an overwhelming majority of humanity today lives with electricity and with water. Many of us, again a vast majority of humanity, live today with cell phones and telecommunication devices that are just stunning and amazing. We have opportunities to enjoy, we have time on our hands, time, the most precious thing in the world, the rarest thing in the world, if you will. We have time because we're so wealthy we can basically produce our survival needs relatively easy and relatively quickly and relatively cheaply. And as a consequence of that, we have plenty of time to do other things, to think about other things, to engage in other kind of activities. We don't have to work 24-7. We can engage in hobbies and in artistic pursuits and friendships and in parties laid into the nights and lots of activities that we just couldn't afford. We couldn't have time. We couldn't contemplate even engaging in in a different era in a different time. It's so important to be able to sit back and realize how amazing the world is today, how rich we are, how wealthy we are, how easy, easy in the positive sense our lives are. And then of course it's important to think why that is and what makes that possible. And of course what makes that possible is the genius of so many people, the creative ability of the great people that we live with on this planet. In particular, the people who have the advantage of living in places that are free, in places where they can pursue their values, pursue their ideas, pursue their thoughts, pursue science, pursue new innovation, new ideas, new projects. It is the world around us did not just appear as so many people both left and right today believe. It was not just plopped here by God or somebody. It just didn't just arrive fully formed with iPhones and cars and nice buildings and great restaurants and just it didn't just show up like this. The world in which we live was created. I'm a creationist in this sense. It was created by human beings. It was created by human beings who use their minds to create it. It was created by productive people, by people who built and made and created stuff and thought outside of the box and then took risks and made something, whether they came out west in 100 and something years ago, whether they built up great industries like Carnegie and Rockefeller, whether they pursued a dream and built great companies like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates and the first founders of Genentech and Moderna and BioNTech. They have made this world and of course let's not forget the architects and the real estate developers. I mean we take people for granted. We take their great productive genius for granted but people who imagine, who look at a plot of land that's empty where there's nothing there and they can imagine homes and businesses and offices and gas stations and roads and they can imagine and not only can they imagine it but they can bring all the resources together and build it. I mean I live in this amazing condo connected to other condo buildings in an office building not far and some restaurants downstairs and right on the water and there's an artificial wall that prevents the water from flooding our garage and knocking down this building and somebody had to do all that. Somebody had to do all that. When you look around your neighborhood somebody had to develop and design and build the streets and put in the cables that give you internet and electricity and everything else and you know and it's the great minds that think about this, that imagine it, that make it a reality. It's the workers who actually go and let's not forget. You know the productive workmen who actually go out there and work and build and make and create and and produce all the beautiful thing, the amazing things that we again just live our lives in. This is not nature. We don't live in nature. I'm not thankful to nature. Nature just is here. It just is here. But human life as we live it today is created. It's created by the creators. It's created by the productive and Thanksgiving. We should say our thank you to the people who have created and are creating our amazing modern world and even at the time of seemingly infinite irrationality, infinite stupidity, infinite maliciousness on all sides in politics and just in a day-to-day life. All of that is so far at least negligible, a sideshow as compared to all the good things that are being produced and created every single day. You know we've lived through this COVID epidemic now, pandemic for two years, shockingly for two years and everybody has screwed this up. Our politicians have screwed this up and our advisors have screwed this up and our scientists have screwed this up. The scientists particularly who give us advice at the upper governmental levels. But at the same time there have been people who have been really thinking about this. I mean looking for solutions and looking for rational guidance and as I have mentioned many times on the show two days after the genome of COVID virus was known there was already a vaccine in a sense that the formula was there both at Moderna and at BioNTech. So I am continue to be thankful to Moderna and BioNTech. Not to the FDA, not to the CDC, but to Moderna and BioNTech and all the scientists and all the thinkers and all I mean the Hungarian scientists who stuck with mRNA in spite of not getting government grants and not getting an associate professor I think position at a university and just sticking with it and now she works for BioNTech. The capitalists behind Moderna and the people who worked at Moderna who couldn't have created this platform couldn't find a use for it didn't make any money for years and years and years and years and kept going and kept going and then when COVID hit they found the perfect use for it and you can complain about the vaccines and maybe they haven't lived up to everything we were promised about them and I'll be discussing that maybe you know as well but they have certainly changed our lives made our lives much better made it possible for us to cope with this virus much better much healthier way and even if this virus is relatively mild and COVID is I think when the grand scale of things relatively mild the technology that these thinkers these creators these builders have made is one that will be used for more serious pandemics more serious diseases and if we're smart we'll learn from COVID and when the next one happens we'll be so much better off and if it's deadlier we'll be so much better off to deal with it because we'd live through COVID if we're willing to learn the lessons and I think there are people out there learning the lessons so I'm thankful for all of those I'm thankful for people like Amish Adalja who I think has done a phenomenal job of calling COVID white and yet has been attacked from our sides constantly and I'm sure there are lots of out there physicians and doctors and researchers who have struggled because of these attacks left and right we'll talk more about that again tomorrow and I'll have I'm going to have Amish on the show again soon to update us kind of on where we stand with COVID and vaccines and the latest about vaccines but I am thankful to all those who have again built and created the modern world I read some amazing books this year just recently so they're at the top of my mind right I read the book the code breakers about the the bioengineering revolution that we're living through and about a CRISPR the technology to edit genes and it's stunning it's stunning the the the hero of this Dr. Dowden is an amazing woman a real hero I'm thankful to her you know I think I'm gonna benefit me I'm gonna benefit tremendously in the next 20 years from the technology that she has invented and from the work that she is doing in in bioengineering and in gene therapies and I think all of us are going to so I'm thanking her now and in advance both for being an inspiration and for the technologies that she's developing but one of the things that came across in that book is how many people how many people participate how many people engaged with these kind of achievements these discoveries like how many people added value work productive work creative and added to the value of a CRISPR or any kind of new science and new technology so while they are geniuses and they are real men and women of ability who who are really at the forefront of these things and make them possible and innovate it and push everybody else and two great achievements the achievements are made possible because of the hard work of millions and millions and millions of people who are exemplars of the virtues of productiveness at whatever level they are capable of not everybody's going to be that genius who moves things forward in dramatic ways so I'm thankful all of them all of them primarily to the geniuses because they have the biggest impact on my life so in in spite of it being a very very difficult period for philosophical political reasons it's still inspiring to me to go outside just to see productive activity going on to to catch up on the latest and coolest and greatest technology that's out there the greatest and coolest stuff that that that is being produced and being created I love tech I'm you know I'm always contemplating buying the next little gizmo to play around with I'm pretty good at being disciplined about not always doing it but I love the fact that people are constantly thinking of better ways I love the fact that all those technologies that were really ramped up during during last year because of COVID have now this year just just taken off and become more stable and easier to use and more integrated from zoom to teams to all these things that we became dependent on last year this year have just become robust and and really good so there is a lot a lot to be thankful for Jennifer thank you really appreciate that and of course you know you should in your own life look around you and and and figure out what you should be thankful for what you should be thankful for given your life and and I'm sure there are lots of things there are lots of things out there in the world people you've never met that you're thankful to but there was some sure people in your life that are important to you whether you tell them or whether you just take a minute to appreciate them and to think about it it's always good to tell people you know justice is the virtue of not just condemning people justice is not going after justice is not going after the bad guys justice is not you know putting them in jail and and and and you know condemning evil the primary aspect of justice the most important part of justice is recognizing elevating appreciating thanking the good so whoever in your life is good good for you good for your life good for your happiness good for your success this is the time of year this is this is the period where it's this is your opportunity to say thanks little pat on the back whether it's an employee whether it's a loved one whether it's just a neighbor that inspires you whether it's somebody who I don't know a restaurant owner a waiter a whatever they just do a phenomenal job they just make your life just a little bit better saying good job well done thank you is priceless and it's the true act of justice a true act of justice it's what that virtue really means we we we tend as a culture as a society we tend to focus and obsess about the negative there are a variety of reasons for that actually I'm gonna talk about that in one of the future shows about this because I'm reading Stephen Pinker's book on rationality and it has some interesting things to say about this but we obsess about the negative and and we have a justice system which is supposed to catch the bad guys and the whole concept of justice is skewed towards penalizing evil and it shouldn't be and you shouldn't in your life in your life the concept of justice should be skewed towards thanking appreciating patting on the back the good because what does it mean that somebody is the good it means they add value they add and since you're interacting with them they add value to your life and what's more important in life than those values that make your life better greater happier more successful and if you can say the thank you impact them on the back and increase their motivation and inspire them to do even more then your life becomes better justice is about bringing close to you the good and distancing yourself from the bad surrounding yourself with the good so again this is a great time of the year to think about that to consider who are the good people in your life who do you want to thank who do you want to be close to surround yourself with and who not and who not life is too short to waste it life is too short to waste it on people who don't deserve it life is too short to waste it on people who don't add value to you so positive reinforcement positive that's what you should be doing particularly on Thanksgiving thank you for listening or watching the Iran book 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 iranbookshow.com slash support by going 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 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