 Going and asking for a government that is known for using these kind of regulations, governments that like power and control are very, very dangerous, and you know that if the government got their hands on AI technology, it's much more likely they would do harm than any private industry would do. What's your advice for someone who's young and motivated and wants to change the world and do something good for society? Well, stop wanting to want to do something good for society. Let's start with a big question. What makes us different from all the animals out there? Well, what makes us different is our capacity to reason, our capacity for abstract thought. The fact is that animals are perceptual beings. They can see and they can respond, but they cannot conceptualize, they cannot generalize, they cannot predict the future, they cannot predict different options, they can't weigh those different options, they can't change their environment in any significant ways, you know, with exception of maybe beavers and birds who create nests, you know, human beings build skyscrapers and we build computers and we can actually change. And maybe what's behind much of that or essential features, the fact that human beings have free will and animals do not, human beings have the capacity to choose, you know, to use their reason, to use their thinking capacity, to use their rational mind or not. And animals just respond to stimuli based on programming that is embedded in their genetic code. So you reject the evolutionary psychology argument that humans just evolve to be in a particular bubble and cannot explain or understand certain things that are beyond their capabilities. No, I mean, I don't know what human beings cannot explain or understand. Every time somebody is assumed that we cannot know something, it turns out that later on we can. I don't think that any metaphysical barriers for us to be able to understand things. I reject a lot of the evolutionary psychology. I don't reject evolution. So there's no question that the elements and the structure of our brain and the way we are, you know, the way we are designed innocent, not designed, but the way we are biologically constructed and exist is determined by evolutionary processes, the great innovation that evolution in a sense has with human beings is that it didn't have to design the entire code. It didn't have to have all the elements of the code in. So, you know, we are self-programming beings so we can actually design our own code. And that's a huge, from a survival perspective, a huge benefit because if our environment changes, then we just need to figure out how to survive in a new environment. We don't have to wait multiple generations to evolve genetic answers or not to evolve and therefore go extinct. We can actually solve problems, we can figure it out and we can survive in a variety of different environments so as the environment changes. So it's a massive leap forward from a evolutionary perspective where the coding is done through reason by the rational being in response to changing environment, in response to an environment that now the human beings can actually change for their own benefit. A lot of people reject the notion of God but stick with the morality that comes with religion. So with Christianity it's obviously that of altruism and self-sacrifice. Quite a few people who are atheists still seem to be taking the morality of Christianity seriously. It's almost like rejecting God is the easy part but rejecting the morality takes more effort. Why do you think that is? Why is it difficult to accept the morality of selfishness? I mean partially because the Christians and the philosophers that have been influenced so much by Christianity have been so effective in setting both in articulating the case for what they want for this morality but more importantly in making it seem like there is no alternative. Any alternative is just dismissed off hand. It's not even considered, it's not even really thought through. So they position the world as you can either be an altruist which means self-sacrifice which means living for the sake of others or you're lying, cheating, stealing, SOB and there's really no alternative and they can't comprehend an alternative beyond that and they've conditioned our thinking to think of the other. When it comes to morality our mind automatically goes to well how do I treat other people? What about other people? So it's very hard for people to conceive of an alternative and to run it through and then the other thing they've been very good at is in a sense separating morality from reason, separating morality from reality and from values, well and from nature and from our own biology and from the reality around us and our ability to think rationally. So then where do you get one morality? Well if you can't get it from reason then oh well then we can't get it from revelation because we're not mystics, well when our religion is maybe we still are mystics Plato certainly gets it from revelation even though he's not religious in a conventional sense but he's still a mystic. So they still find different kind of mystical ways in which to derive their morality or well it's just from society you know it's worked so far for humanity maybe that's why it's good you know we've come this far that just stick with the current morality or take the Christian morality and tweak it a little bit make it a little less offensive and and we can live with that you know somebody like you know some of them try to come up with a reasoned approach to morality based on reason but they for whatever reason they limit themselves to a rational explanation for the Christian morality for morality of altruism they they can conceive of what Ryan's genius is that she starts from scratch that she says why do we need morality what's it for and she doesn't just assume morality is what people say it is she doesn't assume morality is how people behave how good people behave she doesn't she asks the fundamental question what do we need it for why do we need it what is it and she she builds from there and therefore she can completely we conceive and or think of completely new approaches because she's not hemmed in by you know by the conventional view of and look it turns out that it takes a real genius to do that right so all these atheists are really really smart people but they're not geniuses and it takes a real genius and somebody with an immense originality and honesty to be able to reject the status quo to such an extent as to basically formulate a a completely new approach to morality from scratch yeah going on that there seems to be a widely held assumption that inequality is bad and if there's anything we can do to decrease inequality we should do it what's wrong with that assumption oh what's wrong with that assumption is well first it's meaningless right what does inequality mean do you mean equal inequality of wealth inequality of income inequality of brain power inequality of good looks inequality of what right and and so people throw out inequality without really defining it and without talking about it and and but but there is a implicit assumption in that and the implicit assumption in that is that there's some virtue to all of us being the same in some important categories um so uh you know that that that sameness is good and and and that just is mind boggling and and silly I mean what is what is so good about sameness there's nothing good about sameness um indeed as as we've seen it is the division of labor it is the fact that we have different values it it's the reason we trade because because we we have different estimates on the value of any particular thing it's the reason we specialize and go into different fields so and and that enhances human well being dramatically we all have we all have different values we clearly all have different biologies and we have different uh you know we grow up in different environments that we make different choices so we're all fundamentally different so there's this metaphysical fact that they're trying to reject of the fact that we're all different and and so then then they say well no it's what we really consider about is inequality of um wealth or or income and then and then the question is okay but where does wealth and income come from and why do you care so much why do you care so much about wealth and and income and what they reject is the idea uh that people create wealth and that income is something that's earned and i.e. deserved uh you know you saw this in in obama's famous speech was 2012 or 2014 where he said you didn't build that you know businessmen didn't create what they created you know that we're all in a sense in the speech implicit and explicit we're all creations of our environment creations of our genes you're not responsible for anything and and that has a certain philosophical tradition certainly going back to john walls who said you know which is products of our genes in our environment and you're not responsible for your genes in environment therefore you don't deserve anything you got because whatever you produce whatever talents you have they're not yours they just happen happened to land on you that's a weird formulation because they are yours they are you even if even if you got them from your your genes well what are you to logic you to logic that you are your genes so they are you but all of these theories you know reject the idea that you as a agent as a have free will and therefore have responsibility for your own successes and your own failures to a large extent so um and therefore you just don't deserve what you get because you're not responsible for it you don't deserve what you get because um it's it's in a sense determined that you will get that anyway it's deterministic um and uh you don't deserve what you get because we have this ideal of equality that you must be sacrificed towards and that's altruism so it's this combination of determinism altruism and collectivism and and the inequality or the the worship of equality is kind of the culmination of all of that it's the it's the integration of all of that into into this egalitarian ideology that that it tries to tries to bring about some kind of equality of outcome among all of us it's impossible to do without the use of physical force it's impossible to do without violating individual rights on a massive scale um and it's impossible to do without restraining people's freedom and therefore their ability to create the wealth and prosperity that we all enjoy what's your take on the growing demerism surrounding artificial intelligence all these otherwise smart people arguing for regulation and slowing down of progress in the field i mean in a sense there's nothing new uh there's always been people who have been doomsayers about growing technology and and so in that sense it's not new what's new is the fact that the people leading the charge in the technology itself are the ones who are most skeptical about it are the ones who are most doom and gloom about it but essentially all of this comes down to people not really understanding the nature of thinking and intelligence and reason and and the value added that it all provides right so let's say you could build a machine that became conscious and and was smarter than all human beings well that machine would want to trade with human beings because it would realize other human beings have reason they have values i can produce values they can produce values there's a there's a there's a great interchange ability to interchange here and exchange um so they don't understand reason they don't understand trade um and then on top of that they don't understand consciousness i mean machines are not going to be conscious they're not going to be you know it's not like a machine will have values and goals um and the the actual value added of artificial what they call artificial intelligence is massive i mean basically it is a way to dramatically increase the efficiency of of the human mind efficiency the ability of human beings to produce the ability of human beings to to create i mean if if much of the technological revolution or the industrial revolution has replaced muscle with machines what ai has the potential of doing is taking certain tasks of the mind that are non-creative and replacing them with machines and then freeing the mind up freeing individuals up to be to be engaged in those activities that again we are you know have a comparative advantage in doing creativity being won and and of course valuing machines don't value so we have to provide the context in which machines are producing goods because why are they why would they want to produce the goods they they don't consume them so so it has to be they have to be they have to be value they have to be valueers and only human beings can value so no i mean look there's in any technology there's dangers right you can you can you can run people over with a car you can cut people over with a knife um you can bomb people with nuclear weapons but the question is who is in the best position to create safeguards so this technology is not used to abuse people that abuse rights and i think the best people are the people who understand this technology the best and those are the people within the industry those are the people who are building it and if you look at if you look at people like like um i forget his name now the guy the guy who was advocating the guy who founded ai uh c of ai sam altman open ai what's that sam altman sam altman i mean these are smart really smart guys they're generally benevolent they he's not trying to take over the world and and uh and destroy the planet or destroy life on earth i trust him more than i trust a group of international global bureaucrats to to regulate things and to make sure it doesn't happen um something bad doesn't happen so look i i gave this example on the show i did the other day it's you know in the biotech industry you can you can cause a lot of harm particularly now with gene splicing and with the with our ability to change the genetic makeup of human beings even before birth you can really do some crazy stuff and and build monster you know create monsters and and and hurt human life and human ability and scientists are not doing that not because there's government regulations but because they got together and they said look the science is still young we're not sure exactly what we're doing we're still learning let's not do certain things let's let's figure it out as we go let's go slowly where it's dangerous where we're not sure and for the most part they've done that and you know the without hurting real scientific progress why can't the ai community get together and and do the same thing and and basically set up like a a group within the industry that says hear the dangers hear the things that we think we could go wrong let's make sure we don't do these things let's monitor each other uh without giving away any trade secrets let's let's try to let's try to just just live up to to high ethical standards in terms of what we're doing so we don't cause more harm than good that's the way it should be done people like sam all point of people that I would trust uh engaged in something like that but going and asking for a government that is known for abusing these kind of regulations governments that like power and control um very very dangerous and and you know that if the government got their hands on AI technology it's much more likely they would do harm than any private industry would do harm so funny mentioned trade and values because um so there's AI and there's AGI right and artificial intelligence is basically like the chat GPT kind of stuff and that's nowhere close to AGI and I guess that also falls back to like a false understanding of epistemology or reason as you'd call it and and what I was so like my best refutation of this is that uh have you heard of the paper clip maximizer argument like uh that's basically if we give the AI a goal that uh to turn to make the maximum number of paper clips it can then what we'll do is like it'll even turn us humans into paper clips because uh if that's its goal it's just focused on that but so if it's an AI artificially intelligent if it's not AGI then if it can do that then we can just obviously plug it out right we won't let let it happen but if it's an artificial general intelligence then I don't think that it would be so focused on that one goal says to make even humans paper clips if it's smart enough well it depends what you mean what we mean by about official general intelligence and it also depends on whether that is even a possibility that is can you create general intelligence um you know from from uh from electrons in uh in uh on silicone you know and it's it's these are still like I am skeptical that you can create human like intelligence on a chip uh I think you have to have biology to create human like intelligence and indeed human like intelligence cannot be separated from ability to value and and to be able to value you have to be conscious and consciousness is a is a phenomena of life and therefore to be able to be conscious you have to be alive uh so we can't create life we don't know how to create life yet we haven't created life in the laboratory yet um and you don't create life with silicone you you as far as we know the way to create life is with carbon so there's still a lot of steps that need to be taken before we can get to human beings creating a life form that has intelligence similar to humans and if we can and that life form is a valuer then we trade with it and and if and that's great because it'll be able to provide us with fantastic services because it'll be super smart and we'll provide it with whatever it turns out it needs are or its desire or its values are um so you know this idea that reason somehow leads to a being that wants to turn human beings into paperclips it just right and it's true that if it's a dumb machine and it's told turn everything into paperclips it'll turn everything into paperclips but but that means it's dumb right that's by definition what dumbness is it can't think beyond that uh once it can think beyond that when certainly once it can value why yeah it would ask itself why right it would have its own morality its own kind of understanding of the world and maybe it would start with our values because we created them and if we did which is right now at least a far possibility if we created them then it would be like it's our child you know like another person and they will certainly have our own values like because they were the essential values the moral values would be the same because the moral values are moral values for living being with a consciousness and with free will and with reason so if you create a being with reason they would have they would have very similar values to and the smarter they are the easier it will be to show them that these are the two values do you think about alien civilizations at all if there are people elsewhere I don't you know I get it um I like science fiction I don't but it seems like a waste of time to think about it because um either there are alien civilizations or there are no alien civilizations it doesn't matter to my view of the world it doesn't change anything about my life if they show up it might that'll be interesting and fun but as long as they don't show up the speculation um doesn't interest me that much other than if it's a part of a science fiction story wouldn't their success or demise also depend upon their ability to create wealth and their culture and whether it promotes or inhibits the growth of knowledge absolutely I mean you know it it the specific biology will determine what constitutes wealth maybe um but but yes I mean uh I I'm not I'm not fearful of aliens coming here to enslave all people if there's that advanced they know slavery's no good if they're that advanced they would realize that the best way to deal with us is through trade um and and uh and yes we can't maybe you know the whole point of comparative advantage is that you that even if you're inferior to somebody else um in your ability to produce then producing everything doesn't make any sense if you can produce some of it right if you can produce something even if you're inferior in that one thing it's they should focus on the things that they have a the largest advantages and let you produce the things that you have uh that you did that it where they have the smallest advantage and and everybody's everybody benefits when that happens and that's true with aliens as well as it is with other countries or other individuals what are some popular movies besides avatar that he deeply philosophically disagree with we can actually add books to that same question fiction or nonfiction oh questions like this where I have to where I have to dig into my memory are really really hard for me I mean there are very few movies that have a good philosophy most movies have bad philosophies um you know think about the the explicit altruism in in uh in a lot of superhero movies uh the duty premise that they have in terms of saving the world or saving civilization or saving this person the commandment I shall not kill that I don't know what is it Superman or Batman or somebody uh has to live by even even as people are being slaughtered left and right by the bad guys um so so you know most movies have at their core some kind of bad philosophy it's rare to find a movie where you can say yeah that right on it so or think of Game of Thrones right Game of Thrones is a good example it was a huge hit very very popular in the culture but what is it about it's about power it's about force it's about it's about they know it's not about values it's it's kind of intriguing to see the whole story is about the how force is being used and the only alternative is to use force there's no alternative to force the only way to gain the Iron Throne is is through the use of force and then you just see the different characters using force in different ways it's a you know doggie dog world it's a zero sum world it's not a it's not an even so even when you have a character who who's freeing the slaves and views has some positive view in the end of the day when she needs to when when when when she gains power she's going to rule and and she's gonna slave all of us so you know but that that comes from a recognition maybe that force is bad but with no alternative no idea of what alternative there is and and in that sense there are no real heroes in the show because it can't conceive of a hero it it can't think of what that would look like what that would be so I can't really it's very hard to find a show that doesn't have some element of altruism or collectivism or subjective epistemology or a lack of understanding of the role of the mind or you know something like that so um one has to find whatever good there is in the movies that exist and not worry not worry too much about it we you know some movies are so bad philosophical I have a talk that's just not worth watching in my view but most movies are mixed and you've got to enjoy the good parts and and and and live with that what do you think about the current education system oh yeah I mean it's awful I mean it's easy um it's awful it it there's it's it it's an educational system that promotes thinking it's not an education system that that helps us or helps us gain the skill of thinking or teaches us how to think and it's also not an educational system it teaches us facts about the world said it defaults on both of the main responsibilities of educational system train us and teach us how to use the tool that we have our mental capacity and teach us about the facts as they're known today about the world out there which which we need to we need to have um you know it the educational system um either teaches us dogmas that we have to memorize or we have to buy into or teaches us that our emotions are more important than using our mind and reasoning through problems and uh it teaches us at least to some extent that facts are subjective that who knows what the truth is and and uh history is you know is is is an issue of perspective and um and don't take it seriously and generally don't acknowledge your thinking too seriously all of that I think is what is projected by the educational system and and it's uh the consequence are in a sense a dumbing down of of uh of people Americans or really any educational system some are better than others but none are good and what you what we don't have is real competition and education and real a real competition in in people proposing different ways to do education right and to do education well uh and we don't even have really a discussion about what are the what are the standards by which we would measure what a good educational system is and what a bad educational system is so there's a lot of work to be done in education there's some people doing good work in education but there's a lot of work to be done in education to kind of unpackage all that and figure out and figure out kind of an ideal or or better system I saw in a video if you talking a little bit about the beginning of infinity the book by Dave Deutsch yeah and you say his epistemology just keeps missing in that you wish someone would give him to read introduction to objectivist epistemology I'd love to talk to you I'd love to talk to you about that because I think Ayn Rand is awesome and she has a powerful defense of capitalism and the critique of altruism philosophy is just so inspiring in pro progress but I fundamentally disagree with her epistemology and I had your friend and colleague Don Watkins on this podcast and we talked a little bit about Rand's epistemology but I didn't find it very convincing so I very much inclined towards the epistemology explained by Karl Popper first and improved upon by David Deutsch in his books so to start with maybe what do you think about the beginning of infinity yeah so my response my reaction to being infinity similar to you're starting Rand I mean I like I love what David Deutsch has to say about progress and I love his his confidence and optimism and in human you know in human beings and ability to change the to change our environment and to improve our environment and and to manipulate if you will the atoms in the world to constantly make them make life better and make the universe different and his epistemology is completely screwed up and it's completely messed up and it makes absolutely zero sense and you know I find that and I think that of course that comes from Popper I think Popper is completely wrong and David Deutsch is a lot better than Popper I think primarily because he has a much better view of progress and humanity and I think Popper is much more mixed in that sense and and Deutsch is much better but yeah the epistemology is completely screwed up and and it's it's mind-boggling to me reading the reading the book because basically it's like and I can't and I don't have the book in front of me so I don't have the exact sections but basically it's these massive contradictions where the epistemology is completely tripping him up he's making this argument about a human progress that requires Rand's epistemology and he's advocating in epistemology that in a sense is the exact opposite which undermines his whole argument about progress so it's yeah so it's it's it's so it was so frustrating to read that book there were chapters that were wow you know he makes he makes the best argument possible for most inspiring argument and then and then the next chapter is like what the hell what's he talking about he doesn't know what he's talking about what do you think is fundamentally wrong with Deutsch epistemology well the fundamental problem is that he doesn't start with reality he doesn't start with facts he doesn't start with evidence and so he doesn't start with human senses he he starts with Plato he starts who supposedly rejects but he supports starts with Plato he starts with you know I think therefore I am he starts inside his own mind and there's nothing inside his own mind there's zero inside his own mind until he uses his senses to gain facts about the world out there so the beginning point in epistemology the beginning point in thinking the beginning point in you know cognition has to be what's out there identification identifying what exists in the world and only then can you think there's just no thinking that can happen before then it's there's a there's a tool with no content but the content comes from outside the content you're not born with content you're born with the tool do you think there's no sort of inborn knowledge that we possess when we start out no there's no thin born right I don't know what thin born knowledge is but but there's no knowledge so I don't know what thin or thick born knowledge there's no knowledge so like you have as a tool you have senses and you have a tool that integrates the information that comes from those senses and integrates them so you have a tool and you could argue that the thin born knowledge is the the the um oh god the ability of the tool to do what it does right the the mechanism by which the the rules that the tool functions by if you are I don't but that's our knowledge that's just that's the mechanism by which the tool has the function there's just no other way but but it it's taking the evidence that is received by the senses integrating them and and that's where facts and knowledge comes from and until you have that you have nothing and there's no it's not an accident that babies know nothing they they know nothing they can they can suck basically and they can cry and they can poop and that's it having had some I I'll tell you they know nothing and then as they start looking around the world as they start gaining information gaining data from the world integrating that data I mean one of the amazing thing about having babies is that you can see iron man's epistemology in action as they form concepts I mean to me who has epistemology was you know proven empirically you know just by watching children and how how they how they form concepts and how they act and how they integrate and it's it's right there that you you can see it in action so you you get the data and then you start integrating you see similarities and you see differences between first you see differences and then you see similarities between things and that allows you to integrate those into abstractions and and then you then you could start thinking abstractly but until you form those first abstractions from the data that comes in you can't think abstractly so everything starts with observation everything and that observation could be in in very sophisticated science can be very can be indirect right could be using a microscope or ultimately using observation using math that explains that is based on certain observations that are at a high at a different level but at the end of the day it all starts out there and only then can you first you have to observe the phenomena of gravity before you can have a theory about gravity first you have to drop bottles lots of bottles and you know children do that they'll take a thing and they'll let it go and then you'll pick it up and you'll give it to them and they'll drop it again and and and what are they learning here they're learning causality they're learning about gravity they're learning how they can manipulate their parents which is causality right um but they are learning through experimentation they're learning through trying something and seeing oh let's try it again oh and now I come up with a generalization ah that's what it is let me let me let me make sure the generalization actually works i'll drop it a few more times right so they're inducing induction is the big the only way in which we gain new knowledge there is no new knowledge outside of ultimately outside of induction so we induce and then we deduce from those inductions but to to to eliminate induction from human knowledge is from human reason is to eliminate knowledge from human reason we don't know anything in that case well let me try and put forward a pithy version of poppers the physiology are uh which which improves upon so observation is not a source of knowledge you cannot observe the facts of reality quote-unquote the purpose of observation here is to test our theories for where the theories come from trees come from the mind they're conjectured so so babies have theories they just pop pop up theories and then they test those theories and they just they just conjected by a baby a two-year-old conjectures a theory when so yes when you sit many reject like inborn knowledge uh I would say that we have a lot of inborn knowledge and some of like even sucking uh even sucking is like sucking mother's milk is a part of your inborn knowledge after a while we not knowledge it's a it's a reflex it's a muscular reflex if I put my finger in a baby's mouth it'll start sucking it it's it's not I need to suck in order to eat and therefore I need to find the nipple because there's milk there it's put something in my mouth I suck because it's a reflex it's it's it's it's it's it's there's no cognition there's no mind that's involved in the sucking why does it then uh why do we not have that sucking reflex after a year or so well because because one of things that happens uh with human beings is as we gain uh as we gain conceptual knowledge as we in practice in a sense we override the the the instincts the sucking thing is still there but it be it stops being because wait a minute I don't need to suck I can have chew so I don't need to suck stop sucking okay so I can stop sucking so we actually override but the only way we can override it is by gaining concrete factual information about the world one of those factual information we gain is hmm I can chew my food in a sense right I they don't literally think that but they experience the chewing of the food and that results in new knowledge about how to gain you know in regarding the fact that they don't need to suck anymore as they stop I think I agree with that but so so everything so everything starts with you open your eyes you see stuff and there there's the facts of reality there's reality and your mind your mind is not passive your mind is integrating it's working with the stuff and in that sense there's you know in a sense thin knowledge you know in that sense but all the facts come the outside there's no there's no factual information and if there is factual information it's like where did it come from from so looking at you know we're not mystics right this is not a mistake so where did the factual where did the factual knowledge come from where did all these facts come from that you're born with so I don't we looked at the night sky for thousands of years before understanding what stars actually are so so we so we so we it's true we came up with the hypothesis that we're wrong like the lights the gods the whatever but we started with an observation the observation is the night sky the observation is light in the sky that kind of moves a little bit here and there and then we came up with the hypothesis maybe it's gods we didn't have any way to test it so we stuck with that hypothesis and then maybe other people okay but we started with an observation so every hypothesis every single hypothesis that is that has any kind of legitimacy starts with an observation hypothesis might be wrong and it needs to be tested I'm for hypotheses and testing but you cannot hypothesize without observation and when you do you come up with crazy theories in physics as I think David Deutsch does crazy theories in physics that have no reality string theory and and and what is it multi-verse multi-verses are just one example of I think crazy theories that have no reality that mean nothing that are detached from everything and it's because they they start in here and they're not connected to anything out there and of course they're not testable yeah I don't think a podcast is the best way the best format to have this kind of clash of ideas because there's other obligations as well but as someone is about to put forth a stances we should definitely continue this conversation because I do think there can be a fruitful meaning of minds between um objectivists and critical rationalists because we both care deeply about progress individuality and freedom and so there could be a fruitful discussion there about epistemology as well yeah no I agree anyway the final question I wanted to ask you is what's your advice for someone who's young and motivated let's say out of high school and wants to change the world and do something good for society well stop wanting to want to do something good for society um you know why do you want to do something good for society so start with start with identifying your own values and start with wanting to do something good for yourself and wanting to live the best life that you can live maybe at the end of the day that involves that will probably involve something the society benefits from society depending on which society you know do you want to benefit Russian society do you want to fit Iranian society um do you want to benefit Putin or do you want to benefit you know David Deutsch or world full of David Deutsch's who do you want to benefit so I the whole try to get away from these notions of society and and mankind and all this stuff and and and think in terms of a specific you know narrow it down to what kind of human beings you want to actually help and figure out why you want to help them and and have a have a real perspective in terms of your own values and your own life and your own well-being what do I want to do and why do I want to do it so I would start there figure out what what really makes you what you really enjoy doing what is really valuable to you um and uh you know and I and I and it could be it could be science it could be philosophy it could be a lot of different things and and your duty you don't have a duty to society you if you have a duty it's to yourself and and so so start you know that that is I think the starting point um you know I recommend everybody read Rand because I think particularly for the for the ethics particularly for the morality I think I think it's crucial although the morality depends very much on the epistemology I don't think it stands alone so I'd encourage an encouraging young person to study Iron Man and then figure out what uh what a that individual's real you know values what what what is what is really important to you um and and really dedicate yourself to to pursuing them and not not compromising with them um and taking risks I mean one of the things that I think is a real problem in the world is when people become so risk-averse that they tend to be afraid and they tend to be passive and they uh they they don't engage with the world and they don't engage with their own values and they don't pursue them aggressively enough you're on thank you very much for your time I appreciate you coming on my pleasure my pleasure thank you