 I think there's any validity to the the argument that Latin America may not have done as well as Canada the United States have done because they stayed Catholic more than Protestant. So is there any validity to the idea that Catholicism coming of suppresses economic success and it's not it's not even just Latin America if you look at Europe, Southern Europe which is more Catholic is poorer than Northern Europe which is more Protestant parts of Eastern Europe which are more Catholic like Poland historically have been not as westernized as Protestant West I guess. So there probably is a case to be made that there's something there. I think that that Catholicism while being more intellectual than Protestantism so Catholics are more intellectual they're more philosophical and therefore they also take their ideas more seriously and as a consequence I think that they are much more opposed to self-interest to the pursuit of profit. It took the Catholic church until the late 1800s to say usury was okay. Usury meaning interest any kind of interest so banking was sinful all the way through the 19th century even though the church itself would issue loans but they didn't like competition I guess. So it certainly is the case that that I think Catholics took religion more seriously so Luther and Calvin they said for example the God of Usury they said because this world doesn't really matter because even before we're born I don't know how many Protestants take this seriously but before we're born God already knows whether we're going to go to hell or to heaven and therefore that's Luther and Calvin therefore there's Darius I think he's made it there's Jonathan therefore it doesn't matter what you do in this world so you can say and you can do whatever in this world that's fine and as a consequence they said yeah usury is fine we don't care because in the kingdom of heaven in the kingdom of God there's no usury there's no interest there are no bankers but in this world it doesn't matter what you do in this world and whether you go to hell or heaven has already been determined so it doesn't matter what you do there's no you know everything's pre-written everything's known God knows so if you if you're sinning that's because you were destined to sin so nothing matters so there's a sense in which Protestantism at least in its origin gave up on virtue gave up on being a good Christian in in that kind of sense that this world is evil and bad anyway so what the hell and Catholicism still you know tried they try to live virtuous lives it's you know they try to live by the Christian ethics and therefore that retarded their their ability to embrace capitalism because they they didn't want to embrace banking they didn't want to embrace profits and they didn't want to embrace self-interest that makes sense yes thank you i mean the flip side of that is with regard to latin america specifically is that up until about 1913 a country like argentina was just as wealthy as the united states i mean it was like 85 percent or something like that on a per capita gdp and it's really only at least in the case of argentina i don't know about the rest of latin america it's only in the 20th century since 1913 that that progress was retarded and that's when they embraced a variety of different forms of authoritarianism now you can link the authoritarianism to Catholicism to some extent because i think Catholicism is inherently authoritarian because there's a pope and Protestant and with Protestants you have you have direct communication with god in Catholicism it goes through the pope so there's a there's an authoritarian already there so they're more open to authoritarianism but it's also the case that latin america although i don't think this would be a case of italy in spain but it is true that in latin america there was a strong influence of continental philosophy that is whereas the us in canada was strongly influenced by anglo-saxon philosophy by the enlightenment the scottish enlightenment by thinkers like john lach and adam smith and human people like that who are healthier philosophically uh the the south americans were influenced by by kontagel schopenhauer mocks uh and and that tradition kind of a real geoman tradition so it's a combination of the religiosity but also i think just the the philosophical influences on the different cultures and and why the different philosophies influence different places partially where the people came from uh and and partially may be back to the religion all right now there are many philosophies that would offer that to an individual oh yes there are religions that offer it there are forms of government that offer it how does not forms of government that's politics that's a different branch that comes later well yes but governments in some areas in some instances would define for you choices or dictate to you how to live your life yeah but i'll retract governments and just say religions are philosophies all right how does objectivism differ from the philosophies that many of us have been exposed to in our youths philosophies based upon religions theologians dogmatists the very first difference uh objectivism tells you that it is not right it is not proper to man to take anything on faith religion is a matter of faith you accept a religion emotionally or because you were born to it you have not chosen it rationally what objectivism will tell you is that reason man's reason is his basic means of survival that is the most important faculty which he has and he has to guide his life and make his choices by means of his rational faculty he has to make his own choices but he has to know how to make them it is immoral for him to act on his emotions to be guided by the whim of the moment that objectivism holds as very wrong very immoral and morality in fact consists of following your reason to the best of your ability so that rationality is the basic virtue from which all the others proceed using the super chat and i noticed yesterday when i appealed for support for the show many of you stepped forward and actually supported the show for the first time so i'll do it again maybe we'll 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