 Generally, I'm hoping that you're interested enough at what I say that it piques your interest enough to read to my man. That's my goal. It's not to convince anybody, it's really to create some kind of dissent. But to create some interest so that you read more of my man's. And of course, if you interested in following me, I do have a YouTube channel where I do a show just me talking about stuff pretty much four times a week, something like that. When I'm actually home, which is where these days. So war. So war. Well, let's start with the basic fact that war is incredibly horrific. It is destructive. This is what they want to prevent you from saying. The evil of war was an evil. People died. Property is destroyed. Civilizations can be wiped out. Poor peoples can be wiped out. There's nothing more savage. There's nothing more brutal. There's nothing more destructive and human experience in the history. So yeah, I can talk about the music in the background. We can all survive this, right? DnB is a taste of crystal. What's that? DnB is a taste of crystal. It's just not the first time. It's not. I assume not going to be the last time either. If they just stay out there and try to destroy them out there, that's fine. They should come in and ask questions. That would be the reasonable thing to do, right? But they are likely to do it. So I think we have to start with the fact, with the reality, that if you care about human life, if human flourishing is your standard, if human war being is your standard, if being successfully life is your standard, and so do you lie, and it is whatever you call it, human being, war is the worst possible outcome. But anyway, if you value individual life, if individual life matters, and at the end of the day, life is the except for individual life. Each one of us is our life. There's no collective life. There's no collective anything, really. There's individuals who riffle. See the question is why do we do it? You know, a species and really war is unique to human beings. A species don't do it. Why do we as a species engage in warfare? What is it the crisis to engage in the slaughter of other human beings and the destruction of property and civilizations in mass? And of course, all of human history is one war. This is not an aberration. There are few periods of human history that have seen relative... We just lived through one. So I think it's important to study both what leads up to what ultimately these periods of peace, what ends wars, what leads us to a situation where war is the idea of war. And periods of peace are important because I think they tell us a lot about the value systems that people adopt because of the roots of... So if we look at wars, what's interesting is that we today, and through a chunk of our history understanding the violence between individuals is wrong. You know, maybe those people out there don't quite have got a clear message about this, but generally there's a certain understanding that violence between individuals is wrong. Will Smith getting up on stage and slapping Chris Wack, as you saw that in the Academy Awards, is wrong. You don't use violence. You don't use force. What we haven't yet completely accepted is a vicious why, and the question is do we really understand why violence is wrong between individuals? Why is it wrong if I insult you for you to punch me in the face? Chris Wack again, Will Smith. What is wrong about that? Indeed, there are many people on Twitter and elsewhere defending Will Smith. He was insulted. It's funny because, you know, the people who supposedly defend free speech on the right are suddenly defending Will Smith's right departure. So it's okay to punch him. Your wife is insulted, but it's not okay to punch, I don't know, a Nazi. I don't know. So if the left does it, it's wrong. If Will Smith does it, I don't even know what his politics are. It's okay. So there is generally a left-and-right real confusion why it's wrong for individuals to engage in violence against women. Free speech is so important. You're a big speaker. Can we actually just start with a comment from Will Smith? I am. I'll just make side comments once in a while. I'm not going to debate there. What's that? I can't hear you. That's part of the problem. I'm trying. Believe me, I'm trying. If I joke once in a while about the fact that they're out there, I don't think that's a bad thing. Plus it'll get the people watching the videos of context and what not. They're not experiencing it live. So you've got to use the opportunities given to you. So what is it about individual violence that is wrong? Well, I think to know that, to understand that, we first have to understand what it is that human needs to consist of. What is it that needs us human? What is it that allows individuals to thrive, to flourish, to be successful? Because if we're making the case that wars are anti-human, if we're making the case that wars are bad for humanity, bad for mutual function, what is it that mutual function actually consists of? And what does it require? And only then can we see whether violence is pro-individual flourishing or violence is anti-human. We might be able to observe the fact that it's anti-human. But it'd be good to understand the actual causes behind it. So what does it mean for us to be successful as human beings? It makes us succeed as human beings. So what is it that makes us human? And don't say thumbs. What's the difference between us and every other species out there in the world? Perhaps the ability for empathy. The ability for empathy? But is that really, you know, did we advance from the caves the way we are today because of empathy? Adaptability. Adaptability, yes, we very good at adapting but what causes us to be able to be adaptable, right? Adaptability is a feature. The question is what is it about us that makes it possible for us to be adaptable? So critical judgements? Everlasting? Greed. Greed. Yes, it depends on how you define greed. We want more. We want to advance. The question is what makes it possible for us to advance? It's not the wanting that is enough. And indeed, why do we want more? What leads us to want more? What is the source of the wanting? But what was your name? Edward. Edward is on the way track. What makes us different? What makes us human? And it's a little bit shocking to any group. This isn't self-evident. It says something about the education system in my view. But what makes us human is our capacity to reason. It's our capacity to think. It's our capacity to figure stuff out. That's the difference. That's how we change our environment. That's how we get more, right? That's all that is part of the fact that we can think. We can plan. We can change our environment. We can fit our needs. We can manipulate the world to make it better for us. And we do that by using our mind. By using our reason. This man actually means a survival. It is our basic nature of survival. There is no humanity without a capacity to think. Without a capacity to reason. Because think of it. At the very basic level, anybody here have the gene for hunting. Or the gene for agriculture. How do we hunt? You know, if you have a scene, I don't know, what's a wild animal that you hunt here? It names your time. You have seen a deer? You all know what a deer is, right? The fast. You try running down a deer. And biting into it and slowing down or whatever. You can't do it. If you look around the room, we're a good specimen. We're a good sample of humanity here in this room. Maybe a little too male. Maybe a little geeky. But generally a good sample of humanity in this room. And we're pathetic. When it comes to physical ability, we're slow. We're weak. We have no claws. We have no fangs. We have no ability to survive out there. Without what? Without our wits. Without the ability to have weapons. Without the ability to have a strategy captured here. Without tools. Without traps. You can't go hunting. Hunting is a cerebral activity. It's an activity of the mind. Agriculture is the same thing. We don't know how that... I mean, for tens of thousands of years, we didn't do agriculture. We did some genius. Figured it out. And created a whole industry around it. So every achievement that human beings have made, every more, every step forward, every advanced, is a product of the human mind. It's a product of reason. It's a product of rational thinking. We don't emote this. You don't discover truths through emotions. Maybe a truth about yourself, but not about the world. You don't figure out new technologies. You don't write your program software based on emotions. All of that is a product of your mind. 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 iranbrookshow.com. I go to Patreon, subscribe star locals and just making an appropriate contribution on 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 are already subscribers and those of you who are already supporters of the show, thank you. I very much appreciate it.