 The radical, fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights. This is The Iran Brook Show. All right, everybody. Welcome to Iran Brook Show News Roundup on this beautiful Monday. It's November 28th. It's 85 degrees outside. The sun is shining. No rain in sight. It's a beautiful day. Hopefully it's as nice wherever you are, although I doubt it. All right. I do live in a unique place. Today is, we're getting close to the end of November. Today is, we're going to, we've got a few news stories that I think are pretty big. We keep these pretty short, so about half an hour, maybe 40 minutes. Do take Super Chat questions. Thank you, Ryan, for the support. We really appreciate it. So we do get Super Chat questions. So feel free to chime in. We do have a goal for these shows. It's $250. But we'll see how it goes. We've, I think, achieved a goal or better in every show or almost every show. All right. A lot of stuff in the news. I picked three stories. And, but there's, you know, there's a lot of economic stuff. There's some crypto stuff. There's another crypto bankruptcy today. And, but they were, but generally, I think nothing new in the economic front. We'll see. We should be getting December. We'll get the November inflation numbers. We'll get the Fed deciding whether to increase interest rates by how much, probably 50 basis points. But we'll see. So there's, there's a lot of economic news kind of in our future. Let's talk about these three stories. Maybe, maybe what could be low probability, but could be the biggest story of the year, maybe the biggest story of the decade is the rising protests in, in China. The protests are over zero COVID lockdowns. And in kind of the government's general response to COVID and the fact that some people died in a fire. Interesting, the city in which the fire happened, where people died is, was in, in the western part of China. So it was close to where I think the Uighurs live. So, you know, suddenly that region is important. People are, people are going out and demonstrating. They're demonstrating. They were yesterday demonstrating Beijing and Shanghai and pretty much every major city in China. There were, according to the press, there were demonstrations at 50 different universities in China and 50, yes, 50 different universities. So really unprecedented for China. We've seen demonstrations in China. We've seen demonstrations around working conditions in some places. We've seen demonstrations around financial collapse, runs on banks, where people lost money and they demonstrated. We've seen demonstrations when the stock market collapsed. We've seen demonstrations around specific issues. They usually are local. They're not nationwide and they usually stop very quickly. These are the broadest demonstrations in terms of scope, in terms of number of cities, in terms of probably number of people involved, maybe since Tiananmen Square, maybe since 1989. That is huge. Certainly, this is the biggest challenge that Xi has faced since he took over as Premier 10 years ago. And this is the first big challenge to his basically ascension to a dictator for life in China. You know, the vaccination rate in China is very low and to the extent that they were vaccinated, they were vaccinated with very ineffective, very ineffective Chinese vaccines early on in 2021. So vaccines have not played much of a role in China. I think the regime is really scared of COVID. They're scared of what happens in the hospitals. They're scared of what happens if a million people die of COVID. They're afraid of the social upheaval that was all from that. And in trying to combat that, they have fallen into the trap of social unrest because of their measures to lock everybody down. We'll get in a minute to more of the demonstrations, but the Chinese vaccines that are being used in other countries are being particularly ineffective, so Chinese vaccines are just not being good. And China has resisted using western vaccines partially because I think they view that as a sign of defeat. Their own companies which are trying desperately to develop mRNA vaccines have failed. It's a complicated process. It's not easy. And they're still trying, but they failed. And the condition under which China was willing to buy Moderna and Pfizer vaccines was if Pfizer and Moderna shared their intellectual property with China, which my understanding is that at least Moderna turned them down. I think Pfizer did as well. And so China turned them down, rejected them. So, I mean, basically what has happened is China is now vaccinated and they're petrified of death rates. They're petrified of what will happen. But of course, the lockdowns have resulted in the kind of social unrest that terrifies them. It's not like the rulers in China care about the loss of life. It's more about the care about the social upheaval that might result from that loss of life. What's really interesting about these demonstrations is that they are now not limited to just open up COVID, stop COVID restrictions. The demonstrators are brazenly calling for Xi to leave office and they are brazenly calling even for the downfall of the Chinese Communist Party. Now that never happens. So even demonstrations in the past that have happened in China are usually limited to a particular issue or a particular topic and focus on that and concentrate on that and are limited to that. But here what you get is people actually demanding that the Communist Party stop ruling China. I mean, that is a revolution. I mean, it's a revolution if it succeeds, but it's calling in a sense for real change. And that, again, you haven't seen on scale in China since the 1989 Tiananmen Square. I mean, I wish I could communicate with some of the people who have brought me to China many times, kind of the people who have been fighting for liberty and freedom in China for decades, the people who were involved in promoting Iran's ideas but also the ideas of free market economists in China would be fascinating right now to talk to them and find out what they are thinking and how they view what is going on. It is hard. Maybe, you know what, maybe I should look them up on telegram. So that's what I could, you know, I could try to look them up on telegram and maybe see if I can talk to them through that. I'm sure their telegram channels with dissidents in China are expressing their views. So this morning there were no demonstrations in Beijing and Shanghai. And the reason for that is probably, whoops, what happened to my camera? All right, I think that's still not quite right, but okay. I mean, it's moved around a little. There we go, that's better. Although now this is, so the camera is tilted down, which shows my mic. That's fine. So today there was no demonstrations in Beijing and Taiwan to a large extent because there was massive police presence in both places. The police have gathered around the places where last night there were demonstrations. They are stopping people in the street. They are taking their cell phones and trying to determine whether on their cell phones they have VPNs. VPNs are, for the most part, illegal in China. Although most Chinese that I know at least use them constantly. So checking VPNs on people phone. They're also checking to see if they have Telegram app on people's phone. Again, Telegram is not allowed for use in China, which suggests that it's not allowed because the Chinese can't actually monitor it because of its strong encryption. So, you know, the fear of demonstrators in China is very simple. The Chinese state is to a large extent a police state. It monitors, it knows who you are. The fear is jail. The fear is, you know, jail for long periods of time. Can Google courts. And of course, because they have cameras and they monitor social media extensively, they know who you are, what you are. They have facial recognition software. So the fact that people are going out into the streets, the fact that people are expressing their opinions, the fact that they are chanting suggests that, you know, people are desperate or less afraid than they used to be and now are speaking up. I think it's just a matter of time. Now, just a matter of time could be 50 years, but it's just a matter of time before the Chinese actually rebel against the powers to be. I think they're in for a long period of economic stagnation. And if this zero COVID policy continues economic depression, which will wire people up and upset the Chinese dramatically. I mean, the trade off Chinese have accepted historically has been, as long as we have economic growth, as long as we can become wealthier, as long as the poor become rich or become middle class, as long as things are going well, then okay, we'll let you be authoritarian. But if part of that deal is, no, the economy's not going to grow anymore, then I'm not sure the Chinese people are going to just sit back and accept the authoritarian nature of the regime. I saw somebody tweet to me today saying, China's always been authoritarian, they're always going to be authoritarian, nothing's going to change. That's super defeatist. The West was always authoritarian until it wasn't authoritarian. And that took well into the 19th century for the West not to become authoritarian. Kings were supposedly messengers of God who could do anything and could rule anywhere. You had emperors, you had culture change. And I think the last 40 years have brought real change to China. And people have real expectations about certain aspects of their freedom, and I think those expectations are growing. And as Chinese, more and more and more Chinese are educated in places like the United States and England and in Europe more generally, they come to greater appreciation of freedom and liberty. And at some point they're going to demand it. The question is when? Is this the beginning? One can hope, but it's unlikely. But it is heartening to see the Chinese people expressing themselves. It's heartening to see the Chinese people going out there and actually talking about this. Also to those of you, and I know quite a few of you out there who believe that since COVID is a scam and COVID never existed and people don't die of COVID, that the Chinese don't, this is not really lockdowns over COVID. This is really lockdowns in order to control people. Well, this is a bit of a backlash against that theory of control. Also, you don't understand China and you don't understand the regime and you don't understand the kind of what's going on in China. If you think that in the name of this kind of control, which is temporary and China already had massive control, if you think that China is willing to sacrifice its economy, sacrifice its wealth, sacrifice its position in the world, sacrifice its potential military build-up because it's going to become poorer because of these lockdowns. No, I mean, this is about a fear of COVID. This is, sure, it's always about control. It was controlled in the West. It's certainly about controlling China. But it's fundamentally driven by a fear of COVID and using that fear. China has the mechanisms of control. It doesn't have to lock people up in their homes and it doesn't have to keep pushing and pushing and pushing for years when what is really being sacrificed, other than obviously human liberty, which really being sacrificed is massive economic success. And no, this is a combination of the regime fearing COVID outbreaks and what they will do and how they will be blamed of it after they have promised zero COVID. And this is a regime that is comfortable and wants to maintain control. And this is a regime that is struggling with now what's going to happen to the economy. But it is more afraid, I think, of what happens if COVID spreads than it is afraid of the economy. Unfortunately, there is a lot of mythology in the West about COVID. And I think that mythology exists less in Asia. I think they're much more realistic about COVID. All right, let's see. So, yeah, this is exciting, potentially. We'll see where it goes. We'll see how it develops. Something to watch. First crack, maybe. Probably not the revolution, but maybe a first crack. Maybe, you know, the first indication that Chinese are willing to fight, that the Chinese are willing to resist. Maybe a first kind of warning signal to Xi that his position is not as secure as maybe he has thought it is. And maybe a push for some within the Chinese Communist Party to say, huh, maybe we've given Xi too much power. Maybe because I think the next step is not liberty in China. It's not that they move from the political system they have today to political system freedom like that or through a civil war. I think the real shift is going to be some kind of internal struggle which leads to Xi being replaced by somebody more liberal, by somebody more open both in terms of economic freedom and in terms maybe of some political freedom. And then an evaluation at that point of whether the population is push, push, push and then maybe gradual movement towards greater political freedom. It's not going to happen. I don't think in China all at once. I don't think it'll happen through a civil war, but it could happen through internal strife within the Chinese Communist Party. Clearly there are people who are resisting Xi. Clearly there are people who don't agree with Xi's increased authoritarianism, with Xi's increased insistence on controls, increased insistence on centralizing power around him. Most of those people have been ousted from the Politburo, from the governing body, but they are there in the Chinese Communist Party. And in these kind of demonstrations, this kind of social upheaval could be a stimulus for them to take control. But again, we will see. This is evolving and it won't all happen at once. I think again this is a little crack and then there'll be maybe a future crack and there'll be more cracks and then maybe things will start happening faster. But again, I am inspired by people willing to fight for their own freedom, they fight for their own liberty, and certainly some Chinese are willing to do that right now and taking real risks with their life in order to do it. So let's keep chipping away at the Chinese war, at the Chinese authoritarian state. Talk about revolutions, talking about demonstrations. Iran, we've been talking a lot about Iran in the last few weeks. Iranian demonstrations, as far as I can tell, continue. They have not abated. The regime is struggling to figure out what to do about them. They are interestingly enough resisting going all out mass murder. It was 13, 14 years ago when there were demonstrations. They killed 1,500 people in a very short period of time and crushed them. They have not killed, as far as we can tell, anywhere near that number. As of now, we suggest that there must be some resistance within the regime to going all out military force. So it is interesting that there was kind of a stalemate over there. The regime has not brought out the tanks into the streets. They're not mowing down people yet, although they are mowing down selectively, but they're not doing it systematically. And the demonstrations are just continuing. It is also interesting that the Iranian soccer team in the World Cup feels brazen enough to actually not sing the national anthem in the first game. The second game, they were seen singing it kind of reluctantly and softly. I think they were threatened if they didn't. It is also interesting, and here's a thumbs up to the American football soccer association or whoever is responsible for this. But the United States has started in advertising its... It's in the same bracket as Iran, and it's actually going to play Iran either today or tomorrow, I can't remember. Anyway, it's in the same bracket. So the U.S. soccer is constantly advertising the game, U.S. Iran, that's coming up. When showing Iran in the bracket or in advertising the game, they have taken the Islamist symbol from the Iranian flag, they've excluded it. So the flag is the flag just of the colors without the Islamist symbol in the middle, which is basically an attack on the Islamist regime in Iran. Now, who would have thought that the American Soccer Association would be that courageous and that brave? I mean, that is truly stunning and truly amazing of the Americans. So whoever there in the Soccer Association responsible for this big thumbs up, huge kudos, and it's a terrific move. As I said, these little moral support, actions of moral support make a difference. Make a difference. And so they just took out the symbol. Hopefully the United States will crush Iran in the game. Again, symbolically in the name of the demonstrators. But moral support, the Biden administration, I don't know, sanctioned three individuals from different cities in Iran where they have been particularly oppressive in terms of the protests. I don't understand these selective sanctions. I mean, sanction everybody. Just don't make it clear. Why are we allowing them to come for the U.N. and to U.N. meetings? Why are we these Iranian monsters? They should be banned from all flights to the United States. I mean, the United States could take much stronger measures than it has, but no administration has ever done that. But yeah, let's continue supporting the Iranian women. Let's continue supporting them. Interestingly enough, the Qataris, who as I think I told you are basically allies of Iran, the Qataris are banning where the United States has a huge presence, military presence, but the Qataris have banned demonstrations against the Iranian regime. So people with shirts, women, freedom, something. People with shirts are forced to take them off if they come with banners or any kind of signs or anything like that. They're confiscated. So the Qataris are doing everything they can to make these games nonoffensive to their ally, the Iranians. There's also been a call by many supporters of Iran to kick the U.S. out of the World Cup. The idea is that a country cannot disparage another country during the World Cup. It can't disparage politics or whatever. And this idea of showing the Iranian flag without the Islamic symbol is viewed as disparaging. And therefore, on Twitter, you can go on Twitter and you can find all these people calling for kicking the U.S. out of the World Cup. I've not seen any attempt by FIFA to do that. But kudos to the Americans for doing something like that, even though it's a small little step, it matters. These things matter. So yes, we continue to support Iran and continue to be excited about the demonstrations there. I continue to be hopeful about their success. Again, I think it's a long shot because they need somebody from the inside to help make the change. But you never know what will spark. More violence, some people getting killed, hanging of some of these protesters. Something could spark these things to just explode and lead to a real revolution. So we can hope that that actually happens. All right. Finally, as you probably know, because it's all over the media, Donald Trump a few days ago had dinner with Yi and Kanye West. Who supposedly in the dinner asked Trump if Trump would be Yi's running mate because Kanye is running for president. And he asked Trump if he would be his vice presidential candidate. My understanding is that didn't go over too well with Trump. The Trump was not happy with that. Now I don't know if that's what Kanye West is saying. Ye or Yi? Ye? Ye? Ye? Ye? Ye? Ye? Ye? Ye? Ye? Ye? That is all... I think... complete nonsense. I mean Ye is not mentally here. He's not... I mean if you saw his interview with Lex Friedman, Kanye West is not mentally, he's just not here. He's not connected to reality. Anyway, Donald Trump had dinner with him, but together with him, and I guess on friendly terms with Kanye West, and walking through the airport with Kanye West, and going to dinner at Trump with Kanye West, was Nick Fuentes. Now, I don't know how many of you know Nick Fuentes, but Nick Fuentes is one of the worst, you know, racist, anti-Semitic, alt-rights, you know, not cases out there. He is real, a real anti-Semite, not, you know, Kanye is what, Kanye is kind of, who knows what Kanye is, but Nick Fuentes is a real anti-Semite. He is an authoritarian. He is an anti-American in every aspect of what it means to be America. He is an ugly, slick, just, you just watch him for five minutes and it's just, he is so despicable. He is explicitly a racist, unapologetic, you know, unapologetic racist. And the fact that he would be having dinner with the former president of the United States and the leading candidate of the Republican Party for the presidency in 2014 is disgusting, disgraceful, it's pathetic, it's, you know, it's beneath the Republican Party. The fact that not everybody in the Republican Party, everybody in the Republican Party has condemned, this is pathetic, this is why the Republican Party, one of the reasons, many reasons the Republican Party loses, why intelligent people will not, a lot of intelligent people will not vote for them, you know, this is a direct, a direct association between, you know, the worst, worst, worst elements of the right. The authoritarian, religionist, racist, anti-Semitic elements on the right with a Trump. St. Louis says, Catholics are the coolest and wisest. I'm going to do a show on the integralists, which will not be very cool with Catholics. And these are wise Catholics. Patrick DeNeen and Vermool and Soha Bamaari, these are very, very cool, these are like hip Catholics these days, really, really, really bad guys, really, really, really threatening to every aspect of liberty possible, but that's a show in the near future that I will do. So yeah, Trump met with Nick Fuentes. And the other thing is, of course, Kanye West is a friend of Nick Fuentes. Kanye West had positive things to say about Nick Fuentes. Kanye and Nick Fuentes were just walking along as if chummy-chummy, that says a lot about Kanye and, you know, how despicable Kanye is and what kind of character he really is. So yeah, I mean, the people you associate with tells you, tells a lot about who you are, about who you are, about your values and about your character. And I think the Nick Fuentes angle tells us a lot about Kanye. I'm not sure, it's a surprise. It tells us a lot about Trump, not a surprise to me, but maybe a big surprise to a lot of people who supported him, a lot of Jews who supported him, maybe, maybe a big surprise to them. Will he say anything against Fuentes? Probably not. Remember, Trump has always cultivated the alt-right. He's always quietly let the alt-right kind of in on things, or get by and never really condemned him and made a point of never really, because he knows that a lot of the support, a lot of the getting people wild up comes from that kind of mentality. I mean, remember that Marjorie, Taylor, whatever, was also, was it Jews, lasers, something? I mean, he is another conspiracy theorist where Jews were, I mean, another anti-Semite. So just horrible, horrible, and a further deterioration in American politics, and a further consistent path that Trump has taken us on. And let's hope that all these things add up. But I think that at the end of the day, Kanye and Nick Fuentes visiting Trump and having dinner with them is the same as him shooting somebody in the middle of Fifth Avenue. It just bounces right off people, the people who follow him. And the people who care about it, we're probably not going to vote for Trump anyway, although at the margin, I think it matters. I think it makes him less and less and less electable. It makes him, maybe it doesn't hurt him that much in terms of the primaries, but it hurts him a lot in terms of a general election. All right, well, all right, so that's my stories. If you doubt what I say about Nick Fuentes, just watch any half an hour of his show, and you will see, you know, you can get it like that. Okay, there are a few Nick Fuentes questions here. Let me just quickly look at this. Hopper Campbell says, Nick Fuentes is a very talented nihilist whole. Yeah, he's a demagogic, slick, he knows how to present his racism and anti-Semitism, so it cons people and they can pretend that they're not, but yes, he is a nihilistic troll. I guess you could call him talented in that context. He does, somebody says, he does look like a Hitler youth. He's got that slick appearance of a kind of a Hitler youth member. Let's see what else we had here on Nick Fuentes. Yes, James says, what makes Nick Fuentes so successful, even if you don't know anything about politics, the guy's obviously a vile creature just based on his mannerisms. I agree completely, James. I mean, exactly, just on his mannerisms, you could see how vile of a creature he is. But I think he is, like a lot of vile creatures, he understands marketing, he understands his audience, he understands what to feed them. Remember that people who listen to him are not the most intelligent, are not going to be the most discerning, they're going to be people who want vileness, who are looking for vileness. He is a nihilist of the right. He is a hater more than anything else. He certainly hates America. He hates America in the sense of its founding. What makes him successful is that he feeds the scum of the alt-right. He feeds them kind of what they want to hear and he feeds it to them in a kind of, and you know what he looks like sometimes? He looks like one of those evangelical preachers who's asking you on TV to contribute money so he can get a second private jet because God wants him to get to Europe without having to stop on the way and he needs a longer range private jet. He looks like one of those slick who sleeps with everybody, abuses, steals the money, evangelicals who cons people into giving them his money. He goes back to 30, 40 years, the evangelicals who've been doing this on TV and making huge amounts of money from this and he gives them that same aura, that same slickness, that same vileness, if vileness is a word, that they did. And I think that he appeals to the same kind of people that those evangelicals appeal to. It's people who want to be part of a cause, people who worship individuals, people who are completely based on emotion and faith. So that's the same, it's the televangelists, that's who his appeal is to. People who listen to televangelists because televangelists are the same thing. All right, okay, let's see. So we have here, we have a bunch of $20 questions. We've blown through our goal of $250. Thank you, Vivian. Good to see, it was good to see you in Norway. Thank you for $200 American dollars. Thank you, Wes. So let's start with Bjorn with the $200. Hi, Iran. One, thank you for your important updates on Iran. Very little information in Norwegian government media as expected. Yep, I mean, same is true all over the world. Two, ads necessary on Spotify. I find them annoying when subscribing to both YBS and Spotify. Spotify ads them. I have little control over what the ads could be. I could stop all ads on the podcast and then I think Spotify wouldn't add them. That would reduce the revenue I get quite a bit and reduce the upside of the revenue I get. So I think I've said that if I could get people to contribute $2,000 a month, explicitly for eliminating ads on the podcast, I would do that. I'd have to switch podcast provider because the podcast provider wants me to put in, they will only carry my podcast because they can add ads to it because they obviously get the revenue from the ads. But I will do it and I'll go through the process of moving it to a different provider and we'll still feed it to Spotify, I think. If I get enough compensation, explicitly targeted towards that. So it would have to be $2,000 a month. If people did that on PayPal or whatever and said this is to replace ads and it added up to something like that, we could do that. So it is, you know, 2,000 matters. I hope you can beat your super chat record this month. I hope so too. It really depends, I think, at the end if I do a long show on our tonight. I don't know if I will because I have to prepare for this debate I'm doing on Wednesday. I will do a morning show tomorrow. I'll try, I probably won't do a morning show on Wednesday. So it's just two morning shows, it's going to be hard to make the record. Yesterday was not a good day on the long Iran book show on the super chat. So it kind of excluded the possibility, I think, for breaking the record. We'd have to have a phenomenal day today and a phenomenal day tomorrow and that's unlikely. And you know, again, the only potential is if I do a long show tonight, but I probably won't again because I have to spend some time preparing for this debate which is coming up. And it's not, I've done quite a bit of prep but it's not kind of the, it's not a straightforward topic. I'm debating Iran versus CS Lewis. CS Lewis is not exactly an Arthur I'm an expert in. All right, Wes, thanks, thank you for the, for the 2,000 Kroner, really, really appreciate it. Wes says 2022 could be a great year if Putin continues to be humiliated and the Iranians and Chinese regimes are damaged so their people can be more free, keeping up expectations in check on Iran and China though. Yes, I mean, there is a certain reality is pushing back against the trend towards authoritarianism. I think a lot of people who are liberal in the classical liberal sense, I think I noticing this and identifying this up until before the invasion of Ukraine. The general consensus in the world was authoritarianism is on the rise. Authoritarianism is on the rise in the West, it's on the rise all over the world. One of the reasons for that is that people in non-authoritarian government look at authoritarian government and see them be successful, see them be preserving of culture, see them be successful economically, IE China, see them be successful in dealing with COVID, IE China, see them be successful in militarily of Russia and patriotic and hungry and all this stuff. And then the invasion of Ukraine happened and a lot of people think, okay, now the authoritarian tendency will even get greater because they'll see how successful Putin is, how strong his military is and all that. And it's just been a massive, massive unequivocal failure for Putin. I mean, it's a bigger failure that anybody could have even imagined at the time. On every front, economic, strategic with Finland and Sweden joining NATO and on the ground with Ukraine just kicking butt. And the West kind of coalescing and supportive Ukraine and sticking with supporting them and the proof that Russian weapons are so inferior. And every front, this is a disaster for Russia. The brain drain that has happened in Russia as a consequence. And then you get China's economic problems and on top of that the zero COVID and now demonstrations in the street and you get the problems in Iran. It's starting to cause people I think in the West to say, huh, is authoritarianism something we want? Is authoritarianism more successful? Can authoritarians really get stuff done? Is that a model? Is if history is not enough of a clue? Is if history is not enough of a clue as if, you know, knowing something about political philosophy is not enough of a clue. They need contemporary examples where they got them. And so I think it's generally a very, very, very positive trend. Even for us in the US, I think our temptation towards authoritarianism is going to be mitigated somewhat because the authoritarians in the world are failing, failing dramatically. All right, we got a lot of super chat questions. So I will go through these quickly. We're not going to make our 40 minutes. We've extended 40 minutes. I'll try to make it under two hours, under an hour. Sorry. Michael says, how do you deal with eccentric personalities as CEO, engaging with donors and employees you didn't like, but you need them to run your business? What's your overall strategy for dealing with difficult personalities? I mean, you have to decide how difficult they are. I think depending on how important they are, you deal with them. You kind of, without overly placating them, you try to find common ground. You try to find common values. And you try to work towards those. But it is true that if people become so difficult, where it's impossible to work with them, you need to cut them off. You need to just, you need to cut, no matter how much they contribute, no matter how much they support your organization, no matter how much important they are to the business. Sometimes you just have to say enough is enough and you oust them. You oust them. So you work to the extent that you can with difficult people by emphasizing shared values, but once that becomes a drain, once that is clearly not supporting your shared values, but supporting all you discover that your values are not as shared as you thought they were, then it's time to cut them off. Ryan says, I have enjoyed your shows on Russian mysticism and Dugan. What is the prevailing source of mysticism in China today? What or who is the driving force in modern China? I think China is dominated. So there's certainly a kind of a sense of superstition. It's not the deep mysticism and it's not the religious mysticism that I think Russia has. In China, it's more superstition. It's more kind of a loose kind of unspecified sense that there are other forces in play. But it's not, I don't think it's anywhere near as oppressive as Russian. Orthodoxy, it's one of the reasons I was so optimistic and positive about China's success and China's possibility of becoming what do you call it more successful, more free and really becoming a positive force in the world. I was very positive about China, wrongly. So it turns out. But I think it's because they're not very mystical. They're very confucius-oriented and confucius is very much about hierarchy. It's about knowing your position in life. It's not knowing where you should be. It's about the relationship between hierarchies and the relationship between people in different positions in the hierarchy. So that's very important to them. I think it breeds a certain second-handedness. But I even felt when I was there that that was be undermined by freedom and by economic success, economic success often from people you wouldn't expect it, often from people who were from their so-called lower classes, but China has a history, a meritocracy, a real meritocracy, where under the empire, they never had a caste system, which is to their credit. Under the empire, emperors, they had a system where the people closest to the emperor, the bureaucrats, the people who ran the empire were the smartest, they were chosen through testing, chosen through testing, not through family relationships. So they didn't have the same kind of aristocracy as Europe that certainly didn't have the caste system that India had. They had a system where even if you were relatively poor, okay, from a bad family, you could rise if you were talented. And that was unusual. So modern China, there is a rise of Christianity in China in seeking something new. A lot of Chinese, particularly intellectuals, found Christianity rather than, they associated atheism with the communism, which they were rejecting. And the Christianity, I think that was very sad to see that happen. But it's, I think, mostly the Chinese are pragmatists. Mostly they do what has to be done to get by. Mostly they pursue wealth. And the pragmatists, in a very negative sense, they often lie and cheat because, what the hell? They've given up on morality. There's no moral code, really, because of the negation of past philosophical views and the negation of communism. And there's definitely an intellectual void in China, which Christianity is trying to fill, but there's definitely an intellectual void in China, which to the extent Christianity fills will be one of the great tragedies in human history. All right, Richard, thank you. Really appreciate it, $100 from Richard. Thank you for all you do. Can't stay, but I'll watch the rest later. Thanks, Richard, I really, really appreciate it. So we're doing really well today in terms of super chat. Let's see, Len asked, reading objectivism, objectivist again, it is unusual for subjectivist woke to get a leg up and it is expected an intrinsicist, traditional conservatives come back, seems divine imaginary friends beat social make-believe. Yeah, and Leonard Pickup explains why in the dim hypothesis, because the social make-believe is disintegrating. It is, it doesn't provide for uniform theory to explain the world. People want explanations. People need a way to explain the world around them. The imaginary friends, the religionists, have an explanation for everything. They have an integrating factor, God, religion. They have something that integrates it all, whereas the make-believe is disintegrating, social make-believe is disintegrating unprincipled kind of, right? It's the disintegration of everything and that's what they seek. And that is not as Leonard Pickup shows a governing philosophy, governing ideology ultimately. All right, James Taylor says, these are gonna be $5, $10 questions that will go fast through them. Is the defund the police model the norm in South America? The cops don't even show up unless they have gunshots. No, I don't think it's a matter of funding necessarily. It's a matter of corruption. It's a matter of caring. It's a matter of viewing the world of government as doing something. It's a matter of the police not wanting to put their lives at stake. They're not taking their job seriously. But I don't think it's a defund the police model. I don't think it's ideological in that sense. And I don't think it's a lack of funding the police while they could be funded a lot better and they should be funded better in Latin America. I don't think somebody has ideologically defunded them in order to achieve the levels of violence over there. Let's see, James asked, did you see Dennis Pagan, Jordan Peterson discussing the Bible versus something? Good God, adults playing pretend with millions of viewers. Yes, I haven't seen it, no. I'll put it another one to put on my list to watch. Catherine, thank you for the support. Joe, thanks for the support. By the way, you should all become members of the Iran Book Show. You can click on the membership button just below. You can become a member for, I think, as little as $5 a month. And they will be starting next month, member only shows periodically. So it's a great way to support the show in addition to or in, if you're not supporting the show, or in addition to other ways in which you support the show. I think that we have 130 members. It'd be great if we could get to 200 soon. Okay, Daniel says, outside of mass support, what could the US government do to encourage Chinese protests? I mean, I think mass support is huge. And that's what they should be doing. I don't think there's anything more we should support. We're not going to war with China. I don't think we should militarily arm them. They have the books that they need. We should provide them with mass support, which of course we won't. We're not going to. I mean, partially because the US locked us down as well. And partially because they're so petrified of China and upsetting the Chinese regime that they won't say anything and they're not saying anything. Maybe they'll do something if the protest, if a lot of people die, but they won't do anything if they're just protests and the people are just beaten up and sent to prison. If the tanks out in the street like Tiananmen Square, then we'll sanction Chinese for a little bit for a few months and then it all pass, just like George Bosnia did. Alan says, bring the chat gold down to a round number. What do you mean? What's a round number? 250 is not a good, I don't get it, Alan. Sorry. Vladimir, thank you. Really appreciate the support. Frank asks, does disavowing really work? Too little, too late? Well, it's better than not disavowing. So it's better than not, but yes, it's often too little, too late. Because you should have known better. Colt says, I can't see a scenario in which I vote for Trump in 2024 and less scenario in which I vote for the Republican president, which I vote for the Republican presidential nominee. GOP is trash. Wow, this is from Colt. Colt is like a GOP here, surrounded by GOP here. So it just tells you the state of the GOP when even Colt is in a position where he's trashing the GOP. All right, last comment. Morning show's a great evening. It's difficult with dinner and the kids. Thanks, Joe, really appreciate it. Appreciate you joining us. Thank you guys all for the support. This was great. We blew away our target again, almost doubling it. Actually, $10 would double it. Somebody should just do $10 just to double it. But anyway, there will be a show tomorrow. Not exactly what time. There will be a show tomorrow. And the rest of the week is fuzzy. Probably next show will be on Saturday. I'll try to do some shows from the road. Morning show's from the road. I think my morning's open. Probably no evening shows this week. That's why I might try to do one tonight. We will see. All right, everybody. See you soon. Bye, everybody.