 It's most distracted though radical fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest and individual rights. This is great everybody. Welcome to your on book show on this. What is it? It's Tuesday. I'm a little jet lagged and a little confused. Hopefully all having a fantastic week. I am back. You can see I'm back in Puerto Rico. Got here yesterday. I was planning to do a show yesterday but I was on like three hours sleep the night before and I just couldn't bring myself to do it so I kind of collapsed last night. Spent, what is it? Two and a half almost three weeks in California. Mostly great, mostly great but I was in this major car accident on the highway in California so it was not nice. It was not pleasant at all. Luckily cause of airbags so other than some scrapes and bruises I came out okay. My wife not so less okay. She survived but you know more injured than I am but it was spooky and scary and the thing that really hit home was how dependent we are on the rationality of other people. There's a whole show there to be done right. So I'm driving on the left hand lane. A guy's in front of me and on the lane next to and he suddenly does a 90 degree turn and I hit him on the side. He's got his girlfriend, he's got three kids in the car with him. Turns out he's intoxicated. My car is totaled. It's a rental car, totaled. Police were great I have to say the ambulance services were great. Took my wife off to the emergency room and everything and I mean everybody was fantastic but imagine going out driving with your three kids in the back see when 12 30 in the middle of the day, middle of the day. So what you had a couple of Bloody Marys or something for breakfast or something and you went on the road and it was just one of those where I had no control right. I just rammed him to him. I don't even know if I pressed the brakes I can't remember because it happened like that right. So he was just there and that sensation of hitting him and basically what I saw is his car coming like that to me. That was scary. That was very spooky. So very unpleasant. It of course affected the rest of the trip but so yeah that was that was not fun. Oh we've got Daniel here as well. Let me just get him on board. But other than that it was a good trip. So we I got to see a lot of people a lot of friends and we got to eat a lot of good restaurants got to see my son and yeah was was overall a really really good trip. Went up to the Bay Area accident happened on the 101 for those of you know LA north of Los Angeles on the way up to the Bay Area. I chose to go in the 101 instead of the five because it's a nicer drive. Didn't turn out that way. So but yeah people are driving next to you. Now the trauma I have is when I drive now I imagine all the things that could go wrong like all the things people could do to kill me and of course there are millions of those little instances that can happen. So I have to get over that to get back to my normal driving habits. I was driving calmly safely and below the speed limit for change. So you know out of your control completely. All right let us see but it's going to be back. It's going to be back in Puerto Rico. It's going to be back doing shows. It's unfortunately I'm back on the road very soon. So this I'll try to do as many shows as I can before I leave but I will be going to Asia on the 13th of September so in two and a half two weeks really. And I'll see how I do shows from there. The time zones will be weird and exactly what time of day I can do a show. Probably in the evening over there will be morning over here. No morning over there will be evening over here. So I think I'll do them early in the morning in Korea and Japan and that way and I think I've got my mornings free except for one day. So we can make that happen and then I'll be in South America for a while and if anybody's interested in the schedule and the events and so on it'll be on my website if you're in Asia or if you're in South America will be in Brazil Argentina and maybe in Peru maybe in Lima we'll see but all of that will be up on my website and some of and on the Iron Man Institute website as well so you can find information about these events there if you happen to be from there hopefully a lot of the Brazilian listeners are coming to our conference in Sao Paulo at the end of the month. All right with that we will jump into our with our panelists into let me just change the view here to speak of you and there we go and we'll jump into Q&A with our panelists of course you can use the super chat to ask questions as always we have a ambitious goal for the super chat. Not a lot of people watching live I think once I I get off the schedule it takes a while for people to to get back onto the schedule if they they seem to watch afterwards so hopefully we'll get we'll get more people watching as the evening goes on. All right let's start with Adam you're on. First of all ref wash lay mat to your wife. Thank you. Now you mentioned among Korean serials that you saw my country. I don't know if you know about it but there is a series that is in spirit although not in the people involved in the same kind of spirit and style about the next king after the one in my country. It's called the deep rooted tree. Okay. And it's a very romantic type of story. People who have deep values for which they live very effectively but eventually they are they give up their lives for the things for their values but there is no fatalism they are completely in control of their lives and they're going about being in control of their lives and pursuing their values with great competence so I highly recommend the deep rooted tree. Good. Good. I look forward to seeing it. I'm looking for those kind of historic dramas I find I enjoy them more than the than the Korean dramas that are set in the present. And now for something completely different. Okay. Essentially you are very much on the record as being against government regulatory agencies other than the legislature itself. Now there are situations as we saw in the last pandemic where in order to know how not to infect other people you depend on experts and yet there can be no such thing as a right to infect other people. So as a matter of protecting rights the government will have to have experts setting up standards about how you go about not infecting other people and not infecting four students. So I think that calls for at least one expert body that can act quickly and change its recommendation as new knowledge comes in. Yeah. So that's right. So I think that you can include this under the policing function of government that is the the need to help identify and define threats and it could be by the way bioterrorism it doesn't have to be even a natural occurrence but as far as national defense you would need an agency that dealt with bioterrorism. I think something like the CDC shrunken focused just on infectious diseases just on bioterrorism and threats like that would be appropriate. It would have no regulatory power. It would have power to both provide the policing function with information about who is violating rights potentially and who is not what constitutes that. It would advise the equivalent of Congress. It would advise the legislature on threats to individual rights or in the case of bioterrorism it would advise the military on threats on ways in which the military can handle them and the ways in which so where it is exactly housed it would be housed in the executive and but something like the CDC is a legitimate part of government but it would be significantly shrunk if you think about the CDC today it's responsible for something called public health which goes far beyond infectious diseases it's much broader than that and goes far beyond kind of the threat plus the CDC actually engages in actions that have as we saw that are beyond the scope of just protecting rights. You're not a threat to somebody else if you test negative and if you test negative therefore certainly if you test negative and you're not you cannot be forced to behave in particular ways so the legislature would have to write special laws that relate to pandemics. Uncle Gatte wrote an excellent paper for the Iron Man Institute articulating what that would look like. I encourage people to go and read that it's on the Iron Man Institute website and then you would need an entity that advised the kind of policing function that results from that but it wouldn't be a policy department it would be an advisory body of experts that by the way most of the experts wouldn't even reside in it because I think there's something corrupting about a scientist working for too long and too deeply with government. I think most of the experts would be academics that this agency would use in times of emergencies to aggregate the best information possible and to give it the best advice possible. Although I think they would need to be prepared. Yes so they would have to have some labs you can imagine them doing some research on particularly for the bioterrorism aspect of it for known pathogens or things that they would expect would be dangerous and they would be engaged in some research but I think most of that research would be done outside they would be the one funding it. You could imagine some stuff would be secret that they would want to be as part of the military. I mean all of that would need to be worked out but the problem with the CDC is that it has people who work there for decades and it has a massive bureaucracy and it is responsible for I think advice about what lunches children should have on their lunch break in school and things like that rather than being laser focused on the threat of infectious diseases and everything that entails. That's great by the way I should tell you about my own personal experience now that I can look back on it we do have a cure for COVID we have flux of it so it's not the threat that it used to be but I avoided ever getting it by number one getting a second dose of vaccine before it was permitted. The CDC would not permit Americans to have a second dose and majority were vaccinated. That's part of the CDC going outside of its scope it should have no involvement in vaccines vaccines are a private issue both financially and from a development perspective and from the perspective of whether you choose to be vaccinated and how many times and at what age and that that should be a market issue not a issue for the government. In any case I found a way to break the law and get my second dose of vaccine before it was official and I also got my third booster even though to this day it's illegal to get more than two boosters but the outcome has been that even though I was in places where a considerable number of people got COVID I never got it. That's great that's great thanks Adam. All right Jennifer what do you think about laws like customs laws that were they want to keep certain insects out of the country because they'll damage crops or something so they won't let you bring like fruit in or something do you think there's any legitimacy to that? Wow I've never thought of that. I think that if somebody can show that there is a real objective threat to their property it is part of the government's job to you know just like we don't want people bringing in viruses that are dangerous. Now how damaging is an issue right? If it's minimal if it's not a big deal it's like the cold or flu we don't stop people that we shouldn't stop people at the border for that but if it's if it's you know if it's Ebola or AIDS we you know Ebola certainly we certainly do um yeah you'd have to really think that through and know more about it but yeah I don't think it's I don't think that is completely legitimate it's partially how do you the real question is how do you enforce it because what they don't have a way to do is to stop random cars on the highway like they do in California where they have checkpoints and search your car for food or something like that I think if you're caught bringing something in okay there's a fine or something like that but I don't see how they search you and the same with the borders open your suitcases I mean they once found they opened my suitcases at the airport and they found nuts that I had bought at Trader Joe taken overseas and brought back to the US and they were upset that that was bringing nuts into the country even though I bought them in the US you know so it's just it's just ridiculous but what why what why did they open all my suitcases you know so how you enforce it I don't know but certainly there could be you know laws that say don't bring this in and uh and uh we will punish you if you you know if you do exposed it's it's it's a tough one in terms of enforcement yeah thank you all right thanks Jennifer John can you hear me okay am I not lagging yeah you're good now all right perfect um I uh I do have a question I'm an insurance salesman for a home in auto my free time so I have a question liability is mandated in 48 states you know that's what you pay out in the event that you injure somebody it's at um at least the New York standards the minimum is 25 000 I think that goes the majority across the states I'm wondering is forcing somebody to have liability insurance do you think an infringement on somebody's rights even though the you know the goal is to pay for the protection of somebody else if you hurt them in an accident like what happened with you in California yeah uh yeah first question was uh first question I was asked is does he have insurance um I don't know if he does I think he does but the police suggested he does um no I don't see how the government can get involved in that uh you know you would have to find mechanisms to um make it particularly bad for people who didn't have insurance and who've landed up being liable for damage to support somebody else so for example um we have a very slow inefficient court system today so if I bring a suit against the guy who draw who I you know who caused my accident it's going to take forever it's going to be expensive it's going to be difficult we should we should devise ways to make that cheap easy and and make it enforceable so the police would enforce the claim against him right right now it's very hard to enforce these claims very hard to get at him but if he had a sense that if he did something yeah his wealth his entire wealth is jeopardized by that that would I think incentivize but I don't see how you could you know the other thing that could happen is um I mean it's not clear you need a driver's license in a in a free society although I think that would be a requirement for an insurance company to give you insurance would be to pass some kind of test where they issued a driver's license somebody issued a driver's license um but but no I mean you you maybe for example con companies would not sell you a car you know if or if you didn't have insurance I mean there might be other market mechanisms depending on how we structured our liability laws that increase the incentive to get insurance but no I mean I for example have a very large umbrella insurance if you do work in my house and something and something happens and you get hurt I've got an umbrella insurance that would would would cover that and and pay you off right some people don't and and you break your arm doing work for them and you can sue them but it's going to take you time and the same same kind of thing what car is not any different than that innocence dude may I add one more quick thing on top of that just um let me ask so 25 000 is a very well limit which I would never recommend to any of the clients just because you know a night in the hospital is probably at least 40 000 so you're short 15 at that point do you think that until we get rid of you know these laws and go for the laws they fare you know attitude that we're pursuing here do you think that they should have any government intervention to bump it up to 100 000 as a minimum I don't think so I mean I don't know I mean I'm I'm still generally supportive of the less government the better the more we try to use government to make the system as it is more efficient in a sense more good the more we're going to you know the more we're going to entrench it let let the system break you know it's one way in which we're going to make an argument to fix it is if it's broken so I don't like to see them piling on more regulations to fix the old regulation there's no end to it there's no end to it there's so many places where liability coverage is not enough this is not enough for that is not enough and we could pass a law there's no no end to that and we just get bigger and bigger government so no I don't think we we should advocate for that you know would I vigorously fight against the law like that no but I but I wouldn't support it I would agree that's what we're here for to destroy the system yeah well yes to see the system collapse one way or the other all right uh Daniel here we go yep isn't the problem sometimes deciding what is really dangerous deadly I mean we've got flooding going on in Pakistan had it in Sydney had it in Yellowstone all supposedly according to the experts due to climate change there's been droughts at the same time in Italy and someplace else I don't say to my notes at the moment yeah uh european central bank is making climate crisis a key priority if you go to academics and ask them they'll all say it's because of the fossil fuels this is dangerous to people we have demonstrable evidence that climate change is is killing people so um yeah I'm very scared of of letting the government decide you know where and when um we should use fossil fuels yeah absolutely I mean the government shouldn't be in that in that decision making process it should have nothing to do with fossil fuels at all I mean all their land should be sold not least they should sell it tomorrow all of it I mean the best way to pay down the national debt is basically to sell all the government land I don't think that'll cover it but it'll get us it'll get us much closer I remember man this is a long time ago but just to give you a sense of a different America in 1982 maybe under Reagan there was a cover story it was either Times on Newsweek I was remember I was at my grandparents home and they they were subscribing to Times on News on Newsweek this is in Israel in the early 80s Reagan was president and the cover story was how much of America is Ronald Reagan going to sell to raise revenue for the for the government to pay off the debt he never did it but there was literally there were pictures there lighthouses in Oregon and coastal property in the plains you know 75 of all the land west of the Mississippi 75 percent is owned by some federal or state or local government so you know all of that should be sold with the mineral rights with everything government getting involved in these things can only cause disaster whether it's because of climate change or because they want to milk the royalties they get out of the the fossil Israel is a good example of that they discovered natural gas in Israel off the coast of Israel in the Mediterranean years ago I can't remember exactly when but probably about 10 years ago Texas company did it and at the time the Israeli government had a contract with them we get I don't know five percent of whatever you find because really the Israeli government said they're never going to find anything with a land of milk and honey not oil and natural gas that's that's the Saudis that sees that that that was given to our cousins not to us the Bible is very clear on that so they agreed to a low rate and then they hit the jackpot I mean a massive find of natural gas off the coast of Israel in the Mediterranean enough natural gas for Israel for at least 100 years they could they they are now signing contracts to export natural gas to Europe but the problem was at that point the government Israeli government said whoa wait a minute no we gave you two good of a deal we can't do that that's not acceptable and they spent the next five years negotiating instead of developing the natural gas lost five years of development and and we we might be able to supply a lot of them they might be in a supply a lot of the natural gas Europe needs from from the Russia thing but because they renegade on the contract that's government government can renegade a contract because it is the arbitrary contract right so you can say whoops nope no more so it's it's yes government should have nothing to do with energy not just fossil fuel nothing to do with energy nothing to do with economy nothing to do with contracts nothing to do with trade it there should no tariffs that's it you know no sanctions unless you're embargoing the only thing a country can government can do is say this country is an enemy trading with an enemy state is treason we are embargoing this country that's it that's it's the one thing government can do with regard to the to trade so yeah I mean so much would go away and a lot of those experts have the position that they do because it's the position they're expected to have by the government who provides them with the research grants and they wouldn't get the research grants if they didn't have that position so it's it's it's completely and utterly corrupt and yeah needs to be done away with absolutely separation of state from economics point two in my revised constitution bill of rights or whatever yeah thanks daniel ian hey you're on uh just one one quick thing at the end of okon it was mentioned that there's going to be an iron ran con in Athens yeah are those intended for anybody like uh I kind of get the impression that those are for like young people and beginners and things like that and but it would be awesome to go to Athens yes it would be awesome to go to Athens I think uh it's a combination so the way in particular they're doing Athens is it's going to be a combination of material for beginners for young people to get them excited about objectives and we get them engaged and content about Greece Greek philosophy Greek history um and and you know just being there what it means I think there's going to be a combination of content around that conference I think that I think uh tall at the institute is talking to a bunch of scholars who've done ancient philosophy and people interested in in the history of in history and trying to organize a conference that'll have a lot of good content for people who know who don't need the introductory objective of stuff does that answer your question yeah yeah I mean details hopefully soon I I all I know is I'm going I don't know anything more than that I've been told I'm going so I've tried to get out of it but they won't let me out so um uh so it's happening it's they've got a date they've got dates I think it's the first weekend in April um but they don't have the content of the program yet cool no it's just a short one if I can do another one have you heard about or seen the the HBO show The Anarchists is this the one with them like uh taking over a neighborhood in some country it's Acapulco Acapulco in Mexico that's right they take over the neighborhood and they have these conferences at the hotel I haven't seen it I've read about it um it sounds like you'd expect a libertarian anarchist group to be and then they accuse us of having um of having uh schisms yeah this is a little bit more violent yeah it's it's really actually interesting watching and just seeing what happens when people don't have kind of positive values to go along with this negative let's just get rid of organization and the government and you know what happens if you don't have that so it's it's it's really worth watching okay I I'll try if I can stomach it I'll I'll try to watch it but uh yes I read an article about it unfortunately as always Ayn Rand was mentioned in it because Ayn Rand said them so the sad thing about all these wacky libertarian projects is that we get roped into the wacky libertarian bandwagon it's one of the reasons I I you know emphasize so much I'm not a libertarian I'm not on their side I'm not an ally I'm not in their tent because their tent is crazy I mean in this show there's crazy people in it I we're not we're not part of that tent you know absolutely even though there are they're one of the main people that's focused on is is pseudonym is John Gal Galton and there's a Juan Galton you know all that kind of stuff but yeah it's being associated with them is bad news so yeah and unfortunately unfortunately we are we tried to distance ourselves but that doesn't stick partially because our opponents don't want it to stick right they they want to make sure we're associated with them because it's a way to discredit us so it's the media is no interested figuring out exactly who's who yeah okay so it's a HBO all right I'll try I'll try and watch it all right let's uh I'm gonna take a few uh uh $20 plus super chat questions um Michael is okay we got a bunch of Michael questions but they're not 20 okay that doodle bunny if animals don't have any rights whatsoever because they have no capacity for reason and self-improven why does a severely mental deficient person or person in a vegetative state have any right to life I mean they have a right to life because they are fundamentally human and they are granted um you know the status of what they were or what they could be now note that a person in a vegetative state rights don't mean that much to them right because the vegetative state you in a sense you don't have the right to go and murder them but you know what what else do they have right they can't enforce anything they they they um in a sense you can disconnect the machines from them so you can kill them but there's a certain process to do it but rights don't mean that much in that context so rights are something that definitely adjusts to the context children don't have the same rights or rights are not associated with them in the same way or protected in the same way as an adult does you don't treat somebody who's a vegetative state the same way as you do somebody who's completely gone and you don't treat a mentally a significantly mentally deficient person the same way this do they have four rights no so you you adjust the way you deal with rights the way you enforce rights the way you protect rights um to the context in which you're dealing now animals don't have never have it's it's a it's a it's a zero rights status um and i know many of you who love animals that upset you but that's a reality um i'm thinking i'm not going to reveal it okay there's there's a project that jonathan honing is working on he'll have to tell you about it sometime it relates to to pet's he'll he'll he'll he'll have to reveal it when he's ready um but um it's it's the fact that they are potentially and and and to some extent fully uh you know rational um and uh they get the protection of rights but again they don't get it fully uh you could institutionalize a mentally uh if if they if they if they really can't take it themselves or there are lots of ways in which you can limit their freedom you can limit their you know they don't have understanding of rights so this they are there are limitations that are contextual right liam um asks it seems it seems the trend was humanity recognized fascism communism were horrific failures then we got mixed economies and people would realize those are failures unless a fair would be ushered in however it seems we are migrating back to fascism yes and and um because people didn't understand the fundamental nature of fascism and communism and not only are we gravitating with fascism but but communists are respected socialism socially is a respected ideology in spite of their failures because they never identify the cause they then identify what's at the what's at the core at the root of fascism and and and communism so maybe if we try again it'll work out next time maybe if it maybe if we strip racism from fascism it'll work um although i'm not sure the fascists are actually doing that or we'll do that um what if we strip authoritarianism from socialism maybe that'll work because if you discover that at the heart of fascism and communism is altruism and at the heart of fascism and and and communism is a form of mysticism an epistemological mysticism that is an agation of reason then god you have to rethink those things you have to rethink all of your most basic fundamental ideas and people are just not quite ready to do that yet this is where it's way too early in human evolution not biological evolution but cultural evolution social evolution we're just not at the point where we're ready to really question and altruism and and and some form of mysticism and we will only we will only do that when we're willing you know when we're willing to dig in and really question those we will only reject them when we're willing to question those fundamental ideas fundamental beliefs philosophical beliefs as long as we think that mysticism and altruism okay we will try to bring them into reality um better this time this time we'll get it right right but but that's what they both rely on and that's what's not being challenged not being questioned and that's our job that's why it's so important to go to the heart of it so important to question the epistemology to question the morality it's so quite important to do the philosophical work to show what their ideas what philosophy philosophical ideas their ideas are based on and challenge those and bring about a revolution there our revolution is not a political revolution it's not even in us it's not a political revolution it is fundamentally an epistemological and moral revolution it's all about epistemology and morality and if we don't get those we don't convince people we don't change their mind about those then we fail. Statism is the ultimate outcome of any mystical altruistic ideology it has to be and that's why religion has to lead fascism ultimately over time and that's why secularized mysticism in the form of kind of a Plato a platonic view of the world always leads to some form of authoritarianism and statism. Good question Liam all right Harper Campbell how do evil people often know exactly where to attack psychologically and epistemology? Well because and epistemologically because evil people tend to be very focused on exactly that other people and they're focused this is also Tui in the fountainhead and the whole depiction of him what he's really good what he's focused his mind on what he puts his energy towards his understanding the psychology of people and manipulating that and learning by manipulating them what works what doesn't work what works on what kind of people how to do it and that's where all their energy goes into whereas healthy people are almost exclusively focused on reality on dealing with reality on solving problems in reality on shaping reality exploiting reality using the data from reality to live a better life. Evil people have mastered the skill of manipulating other people that's what they focus on that's what they put their energy towards whatever thinking they do if you can call it thinking it's focused on that and again I think the description of also Tui in the fountainhead is perfect when it comes to this right. All right last super chat for now that doodle bunny how hard should you beat yourself for past mistakes you did when you were younger even if what you did was malicious and criminal? I mean you need to beat yourself as much as necessary to make sure you never do it again to understand internalize integrate the the the the wrongness of what you did to understand why you did it and to eradicate that from your from your character and from your soul you need to also recompense so if you did it to somebody else you need to find a way to to to compensate them for the damages that you did as part of forgiving yourself I don't think you can really forgive yourself until you've done that. So I think doing malicious and criminal things is really really really serious I mean criminal assuming the crime is a real crime right it's a rights violating crime and you need to beat yourself up to the point where it's gone and then you need to figure out how to how to compensate those who you've damaged and and and that then you can you can be back in a sense on the bandwagon of justice right because otherwise you're always going to have this feeling that you're unjust even though you understand it was wrong you'll never do it again but I was unjust and and to to remedy that you have to find a way to to compensate for it. All right all right we're back to our panelists Adam Adam is gone. I stepped away for a moment there you are but I do have another thing to bring up which is the question of how objective is the American legal system now I recall Leonard Peekov in answer to a question after one of his Fort Hall forum talks bringing up the post-enlightenment French legal system that was adopted by and improved by several other European countries including Switzerland which essentially is based on the idea that one can objectively know the reality of what happened in a criminal case and the job of the court is to establish the facts and the function of the defense council is to make sure that no one is ignoring whatever facts may exonerate the defendant but the function of the court is to establish the truth whereas in the existing American legal system the lawyers for each side are free to cherry-pick the evidence that favors their side it becomes a kind of sport and is historically descended from trial by combat. So how objective can the American legal system be without converting it to the post-enlightenment objective model? Yeah I mean Leonard Peekov talked about this after the OJ Simpson trial which was clearly a very non-objective trial and he basically came out against the system of an oppositional legal system where the job of the defense attorney is to do whatever they can to defend their client no matter his guilt and the job of the prosecutors to prosecute no matter what. I think Leonard made a very convincing case that that is a more objective system that where I think it's a French system where basically the judge and both lawyers the three of them the court if you will is responsible for discovering the truth and the judge has a much bigger role and the judges are often investigative judges that is the judges are often looking at the evidence investigating it as part of kind of the police procedure the judges engage and so is the prosecutor and potentially defense attorney. So not exactly the part of the system is that investigations are not conducted by the executive but by a special magistrate in the judicial branch that's right and the qualification at least in a series of novels about an investigating magistrate in Portugal the requirement for that investigating magistrate is a degree in STEM that is that particular magistrate has a degree in chemical engineering but it could be any science as long as it's something that's centered on objective establishment from the evidence rather than trying to argue one case or the other the investigating magistrate handles identical dossiers that this files of evidence that he has collected if he decides it's worth a trial the defense and the prosecution and the judge get identical files with the evidence. Yep no I so I think I think it makes that system makes a lot more sense it is you know the the British system and the American system adversarial systems and you lose that objectivity now how objective American courts I think for the most part they get it right but yes they can be easily be manipulated juries can be manipulated emotionally and you do you do get this attitude of defense attorneys which is to do anything in order to get the client off which I think is not objective and not just and problematic so exactly how you would create the ideal system I don't know you would have to have again legal philosophers thinking about this and coming up with something. However it carries over into the American patent system we have a patent system in which the actual invention is not what matters and even if the actual invention has been instantiated in practice it's fine dozens and dozens of times it can still other applications of the same concept which technical people already understand from the prior art from what already exists you can still get a patent on additional applications of the same concept which a technical person would immediately recognize. Yeah so I don't know enough about the patent system I'll leave that to future legal scholars to figure out how to do that properly I think the patent system for all I you know from the work Adam Assef has done at least professor at George Mason University the American patent system seems to work pretty well so I'm I'm I'm lucked into Chukit yet but you know I'm sure it could be improved by a more objective legal system right thanks Adam Jennifer Do you know who Peter Hitchens is? Yes okay I think he's he's worse than Christopher I think he's pretty bad well Christopher was Christopher was better than than him yeah he is just straight down the line conservative and right now I think pro-russia if yeah pro-russia I like Christopher Hitchens with all his craziness and yeah he was better than Peter for sure. He was super smart and super articulate and thought Ayn Rand was really bad but I treated her with respect in the sense that she was the threat he he was smart enough to know this objectivism stuff needs to be taken seriously we need it because he would often mention objectivism in his talks as as this oppositional force he took it much more seriously than other people but yeah Peter you know Christopher Hitchens was an atheist Peter is a Christian yeah I mean I was a somewhat fan of Christian Hitchens particularly once he abandoned his socialism not a fan of Peter Hitchens I'm supposed to they keep trying to get a debate between me and Peter Hitchens in England to happen I think he's agreed in principle but we've never really made it happen hopefully one of these days it'll happen yeah like the other day he said that it's it's idiotic to have a philosophy basically because if you do you're dogmatic but then he said the reason there's a lot of crime right now in London is because people aren't religious yes so they believe philosophy is bad principles are bad unless they're Christian what you need is religiosity which is much more flexible in terms of in terms of it's principle who did I read that just said the same thing um yeah I mean there's a conservative another British conservative that I was just somebody just sent me a video of him exactly the same thing principles are bad ideas are bad just follow Christianity so they believe in dogma not principles right they believe in in in blind obedience yeah he sort of reminds me really buckly because he's got this voice like he's so intelligent almost all British people remind me really much I mean all educated Oxford the ones that work in the Oxford accent you know that have a down pat the common Britishers don't but but yeah it's problematic all right thanks Jennifer John back so I have a question in regard to um the romantic idealism if you call it that of um objectivism my understanding of it is that it's supposed to be how life should be and you know you know coming terms with their own values reaching our highest potential and I 100% agree with that I wonder if any kind of um stories or art or you know I'll use HP Lovecraft as an example with like you know his ghostly you know ghostly eldritch horror to it despite the fact that's very professionally written do these things have a value in objectivist society so I guess I missed what exactly have as a value things such a horror movies I'm not saying a horror movie in the cloak will sense but I mean horrors and like are you familiar with any of Lovecraft writing like uh Call of Cthulhu I'm not yeah no that's okay but you know stuff with like demons and you know other you know other other crap so but it's very professionally written and it has you know high vocab to it's got a gripping story but there's really no moral to it do these things have any value in an objectivist society yeah I mean it depends on the quality of writing the quality of the of the of the story the quality of the characterization so you can get you can get value out of odd Leonard Peacock has a talk I've mentioned this on my show a few times a survival value of great but evil you know themed art or non-romantic art or like he taught he gives an example of of tall story right tall story is not exactly romantic it's the opposite but you should read it it's it has great value and he would say and he says in the talk survival value right so it depends on our good audience it depends on you know how good it is at at depending on the art form right at at presenting what it's trying to present so yes it could be in any genre and you look you can have a romantic horror story right horror movie a horror novel because you can have a hero who makes choices and and beats the demons so the fact that the demons are in it doesn't necessarily destroy I know was it Iron Man hated horror movies and Leonard Peacock likes them something like that yeah so it really is an issue of is there value in something you know real value objective value in something that is being presented if it's not from the theme then maybe it's from the writing or from something else yeah I understand that and it's unfortunate that you may have read a Lovecraft for this example because it's it's so like I would call it atonalism it's very you know it's very dark it's very drab it's very dreary and LA you know it's got all these terrible themes and then racism you know murder etc but it's very it's very like articulate and compiled and very you know just interesting despite the fact that it's immoral I love it regardless though I do yeah I mean I don't know if you saw you know I don't read as much as I should but I have so do you have have you seen Breaking Bad oh kidding of course it's why I reunite my relationship with my father well I mean Breaking Bad is an amor story with no heroes indeed no good characters in the entire thing everybody is an idiot has come back you know I can't you know the FBI are complete incompetent fools they're the everybody's just stupid and the main character the one we follow forward five six seasons or something is is just become more and more and more evil as the show goes on and as really no redeeming features I think his sidekick is you know irrational immoral um you know second-handed nothing which we all we all root for him to somehow survive he should have died in the final episode it's a travesty a moral travesty they kept him alive in my view he compromised his integrity over and over and over again he was given tons of chances to walk away and didn't um he kept being dragged in so he deserved to die right morally that show is reprehensible right from a moral theme perspective but it had phenomenal writing it had phenomenal you know plot build up and suspense and structure and twists there were surprises the characters were evil but interesting to some extent I mean I have to say that I thought some seasons dragged and I you know probably could have done with three seasons instead of five or even two seasons instead of five and the alternate point that life is a slippery slope and if you start down this path you're never gonna you never you know you're gonna keep sliding got that third episode that you know I don't know that I needed all the brutality that followed but it was very very well done and and uh you know there's an aspect of which I enjoyed it even though that being one of the best tv shows ever produced says something about our culture that our culture can produce dark horrible shows about horrible people brilliantly just brilliantly says something about the culture in which we live right and I agree and you're not gonna find a really really really good well-made show about really really really good heroes it just doesn't exist I completely agree and I'll let you off with uh behind my computer here I have a huge clockwork orange poster so you know we're on the right oh there you go talk about the ultimate in evil movies yeah uh I mean clockwork orange is a man is is brilliant in many respects right but I mean I would kill him just for using beta wins fifth I mean it's like you know Stanley Kubrick should be I don't know what the penalty is for making me associate the fifth with the brutality of clockwork orange so yes but it's wow it's it's it's every aspect of that movie is thought out it's it's well-made it's interesting in a sick kind of way it's brilliantly acted and yet the theme of it is awful and you know I couldn't watch it today I'm glad I saw it when I was young I wouldn't watch it today too painful it's it's much in that sense much more powerful than making bad even because making bad I could watch today I don't think I could watch clockwork orange again and I watch it probably three four times when I was young so I I I I get it all right um Daniel I have a question about benevolence um I noticed that young people that I see on the street and young people at work um some of them still wear masks and if you talk to them they don't wear them around the family they don't wear them at work but whenever they're out and about they still wear their masks and I'm concerned that their basic attitude is that everyone I don't know is a potential threat to me instead of seeing them as hey this is someone who's providing goods and services that I use and they buy uh you know directly or indirectly and vice versa they are in some way you know trading with me buying the services and and products that I make and that you know every person you know from that standard is a potential value and I just wonder how if if we've been training people that by our handling a COVID that that everyone you don't know is a threat how do you teach benevolence how do you convince people that um there's a lot of value in 99.99 percent of the people that you meet on the street I mean I I think it's difficult I mean I really do think that um you know the worst part of it of the mask wearing is the children are wearing masks in in federally funded uh you know kpk programs children are two to two years to five years of wearing masks even outdoors all the time how do they relate to other people without watching their face without seeing them they are taught when they're tiny little that other people are threat to them how they're going to be benevolent I mean it's one thing for an adult maybe this is a maybe this is just a period and they get over it but kids God you're you're instilling this at a very very young age and the consequences are not going to be good. Is part of the answer we've got to expose them to more classic art like the the mirror painting that's there behind you and the the statue. Yes I mean but that we should do in any case COVID or no COVID right yes I think art is a powerful tool um to to learn about the wonders of life and the beauty of it and the the incredible potential that human beings have um and I think I think as we just talked about with John the sad thing is that most of good art today that is produced is produced with bad themes that don't teach benevolence quite the opposite their own projector world is a wonderful place quite the opposite so it's very hard and how do you select the right art and who's going to do the selection what are parents know about art they don't know anything so it's very difficult but look COVID is COVID has been so destructive um to the but also revealing because it has revealed the fact that people can't think in in they can't make their own risk assessments I mean I still see people walking outside on a breezy day with a mask on now you don't need to be have an IQ of 140 to know that that just doesn't make sense now if you're in a crowded place with a lot of people around you and and yeah but it's and then and then young people kids should not be wearing masks period COVID is not an issue for kids it hasn't been it is not the probability of anything really bad happening for kids is minute it's not worth the damage of having to deal with masks and children it's just but people have no capacity to make those kind of risk assessment now you know Adam has told us in the past he's got all kinds of comorbidities he's he's pretty old um and and all this stuff right for him maybe he does make sense to wear a mask but everybody is going to have to make their own assessments and I can see that people are not doing it and they can't they have no capacity to do it and then you know they wear a mask all day they wear a mask outdoors they wear a mask by the beach but then they sit down at the restaurant and they take the mask off as if the virus knows oh he's sitting at the restaurant he must be safe you know we we must infect him right I mean sitting at the restaurant it's a closed environment you've got a waiter leaning over you god you just you know my wife probably when she got COVID probably got it in a restaurant uh you know in in December of 2020 so it's it's there's no sense of calibrating risk behavior and and adjusting and thinking and figuring stuff out it's just fear follow the orders don't think um I saw one of my co-workers who wasn't wearing a mask put it on go outside I happened to be going out at the same time he got outside exactly he took his mask off so he could smoke yeah yeah I mean I mean it's nuts right he's taking something you know which will probably cause him to miss a few days of work because of a cold right now particularly with version 5 and instead replacing with something that has a high likelihood to give him lung cancer and not just die but die are really really bad unpleasant death it's people have no capacity to I mean they have the capacity they have no they don't engage in that part of their brain and it that's what drove me crazy the most during this pandemic the hysteria on both sides the inability to assess risk on both sides uh you know the people who were not going to be vaccinated no matter what even if they have cold mobility and on their death bed as they're dying from COVID refused it's still claimed that you know it would be bad to be vaccinated um it yeah it's um it's shocking how irrational how irrational people can be and are outside of their work environment outside of the specific tasks that they have to do they do that and they completely lose it outside of it and and that's again another sense in which the culture is not quite ready and and obviously some people can make the leap right Ayn Rand was in Russia terrible horrible place and she saw tall buildings in skyscrapers in movies and that was part of what inspired her right to get the heck out of Russia say there's a better way yep it's uh it's truly yes people have the capacity to not do you know to not just follow what everybody else does have the capacity to use their mind have the capacity to think outside the box have the capacity to be to have reason it but reason is something that needs to be engaged needs to be you need energy you need to bring it forward it requires will willpower and people are not obviously don't do that I mean it's it's sad to see and COVID more than any COVID and Trump are the two things that have brought it out more than I've ever seen before um but in COVID it was particularly this issue about risk and the inability to assess risk thank you thanks Dan uh let's see Ian uh recently I was re-reading some stuff in the foundations of free society that book um on essays on Anne Rand's political thoughts and particularly Rob Tarr's essay on the Austrian theory of value as you're familiar with that yep which I think that essay is one of the best objectivist economic articles that I know of it's just amazing yep do you know if anybody has shared that with some of the Austrians I don't know who's active in Austrian economics these days or if those ideas have been shared with them the clarification and if they have any thoughts or responses so I don't know of any responses I do think that the article has been shared um I know that the article was available separate from I think it was published in New Ideal or something it was it was available separate from the book so it was available to share um you know as a PDF or something like that um I think I think attempts have been made um I I'm pretty sure Pete Betke has seen I think he got the book and I think he's seen an article where he's read it or not I don't know if you know Pete Betke is but Pete is a is a prominent Austrian at George Mason University um and a teacher so a significant influence on young Austrians uh I haven't I don't think there's been a response I don't think there's a critique and by the way I share your assessment of the article I do think it's it's one of the best if not the best thing ever written by an objectivist on uh economics um it's um it's philosophical and I worry that the Austrians are going to struggle with that and the Austrian philosophers I'd be curious what somebody like Brian Kaplan would think of it that's a good that's a good I I'll try I don't know Brian but I know people who know Brian um maybe we could get in front of Brian Kaplan uh because he's a libertarian philosopher Austrian philosopher uh who's very very small and very very good on a lot of things so I you know we disagree obviously and I think he's an anarchist but but but we he's got he's got other stuff that's excellent just excellent on immigration and on other issues he's the best I've seen on immigration um and um of the of the kind of Austrians uh so somebody like that who has more of a philosophical bent I think might be might be of interest might be of interest in that article but unfortunately yeah it should be a bridge because basically saying the article is basically saying that at the core economics objective value is objective value is this is the is the socially objective value as I man sees it and this the the two are getting at the same thing from different perspective um but but they're not in conflict they can be they can you know they can be um and that's a really really important observation that leads to some important economic conclusions and it's one of the reasons I think most objectives intellectuals view austin economics very favorably right as the as the as the economic theory that is most reflective of reality cool thanks yeah sure yeah I encourage people to read that essay it's it really is terrific um okay let's see okay so I think I got everybody let me I'm going to take some super chat we've got five here over 20 this is going to be a long show today um all right Michael why is altruism and guilt so good at getting into your subconscious and haunting a person for their entire lives if I hadn't discovered objectives right now I wouldn't be able to shake that curse on my own because they relate to ethics to morality so the reason is that as a as a being as a biological being as human beings we need morality and therefore we need a code of morality and altruism is the only code we've taught so it goes deep and it is hard to shake and it impacts everything we do and guilt is the negation of your morality and if morality is really really important then that guilt is not going to be trivialized it's it's going to have deep roots and even people who are cynics skeptics who say um morality um I just do what works or pragmatists um and um even they can't ignore morality they've absorbed morality they know morality is important deep down even though they won't admit it so they are whether they like it or not they're gonna also have this bent towards altruism affected by guilt because that's the kind of species we are we're a species that needs a moral code i.e. that needs principled guidance on how to live and even if we reject the idea that we need it we still need it reality is what it is and as a consequence it has a impact on us and guilt is one of the impacts it has on us the negative side of that impact but it's still an impact all right hopper Campbell thank you hopper 50 bucks i really appreciate it um how do you know when your brain interprets the data provided by your senses it isn't making a mistake only provided you with the information you need to survive not all the information that's actually out there like the fourth dimension spacetime well i know it's not providing me with all the information i know that for example uh when you look at a flower you're not getting uh the um you're not seeing what a bat sees right a bat has a different sense right it sees the way sound bounces off the flower i'm saying see not in actual visual but but in the in the sense of sensing a bat senses the way sound waves bounce off a fly our senses don't give us that information so and our senses don't give us all the information they give us information um up to our capacity to see we we don't see um the molecules inside the flower we don't suddenly don't see the atoms inside the flower so what we see is what we see our our sensors have evolved to provide us with information necessary for our survival exactly that you know and and we we uh but the information we get is the right information it's not all the information there is no such thing in a sense is all the information there's no end to that kind of equation right um we get the information um at a level of what's the right term a level of oh god somebody like Greg was here he'd have exactly the right term the leg of um acuity i think maybe is the right term that is necessary for us to survive and thrive in the world and one of the ways we know the data is not mistaken is the fact that we survive um if we didn't if the data was not true will be the point the whole mechanism of evolution is geared towards uh you know giving you the tools in order to survive and survive and for human being means use your mind in order to form abstractions it's much more than just um it just the the the seeing so you have the relevant information you don't have all the information for example you can't see what's in the distance or you can see what's in the distance it's fuzzier than what's close in hushily because what's close in is right now you know generally evolutionary more important than what's far away but not always sometimes what's far away is the threat and you have to deal with it so we build telescopes we as human beings figure out how to deal with that so we can identify the threat of an asteroid coming towards earth and hitting us or whatever you know we'll we already fall but but but or telescopes to see the tiger from far away so we can we can hide before he gets there whatever right um so it's it's you know the fact that our sensors provide us with information is proved to us every single day every time you open your eyes and you actually get out of bed and you don't fall and you don't it's not an abyss and a car doesn't run you over when you're getting out of bed at least in most cases um you know every day our sensors are proven to be amazing in accurate so there's simply no reason to assume otherwise it's a completely arbitrary statement to say the sensors are not providing you with accurate information they are they're just not providing you with all the information within the limits of acuity like a dog can hear sounds that a human can't oh our sensors don't give us well within the range of what they provide us they provide us true sounds not what's really there right and and the same is true of uh every one of our sensors hopefully that answer dive uh now that the fourth dimension spacetime I don't you know it's not clear that there is a fourth dimension in the sense of the three dimension three dimensionals the spatial relationships it's not clear the time is a spatial dimension I was like it is and so it might be in some if you're doing math it might be easy to think about time as a fourth dimension like in in Einstein's relativity theory but you can't think of it as a spatial dimension right and that's why you can never see time because it's you know and according to objectivism time is not a dimension at all I don't think because it's a it's a relationship but um that is beyond my pay grade uh all right real evil elvish not evil sorry elvish rope uh hey you're on huge fan from southern Ontario Canada and curious what are your thoughts about the four-day work week movement that has been gaining traction around the world and what pros and cons come with it thanks in advance you know I don't have an opinion about the fourth day work week uh maybe it's good maybe it's bad I just don't want government involved um if it's a voluntary thing and companies think that four days people will be more productive than they are on five days cool uh I don't know what the right number of days to work is does anybody I mean when I was growing up in Israel we had a six-day work week it was you got off Saturday that was it we went to school six days a week and I came to americans suddenly it's five days that was pretty cool as a student as a kid right suddenly you got two days off on the weekend in Israel you only got one day and everything was fine and then they today you get two days um I can imagine a four-day work week I can imagine different people having different lengths of time right different work weeks why standardized some um some activities require standardization because uh if you're on a if you're on a um uh in a manufacturing job you have to be there at the same time John is because you're doing complementary things um but most jobs today are not like that and most jobs of the future are not going to be like that because those kind of jobs are going to be automated so um it's it's you know people should work as much as they want to and as much as people are willing to pay them and it's a voluntary issue between employers and employees and uh the state should get out of the business and there should be no necessarily standardized work week in the same with school I don't know how many days of school is right I don't know um I think if we have a standardized work week school probably you should match that because otherwise it'll be super inconvenient but other than that maybe if you have good school maybe schooling if your home schooling is seven days a week maybe it's seven days a week but shorter days maybe it's only three days a week but it's really really intense I don't know you know all of those are good questions to ask from a productivity perspective from a learning perspective from a specialized perspective there's no philosophical answer to that question okay Michael asks a lot of leftists talk about the prison industrial complex as though mass incarceration is due to prison privatization is there any merit to this or is mass incarceration primarily a product of a Christian purity and culture I think mass incarceration is primarily a consequence of an attempt to prohibit drugs and a criminalization of drugs and in the past of alcohol so yes I think most of the incarceration is primarily a consequence of a Christian purity and culture and and in the consequence of an attempt to dictate morality from the government down instead of just leaving us to live our lives and protect our rights and leave us alone but I can see why people blame the the private prison system I don't think prison should be private it's just a it's just a weird incentive structure there and you know I think this is part of the function of government force is a function of government to outsource I don't like private armies I don't like the US military hiring security forces to go and patrol you walk if a job is necessary for the military the military should do it if his job is necessary for the police function that is prison then the police should do it I don't think it should be outsourced and then yeah there is a certain incentive if you outsource them and then the prisoners get you get paid based on honey prisoners you have there's an incentive to have more prisoners rather than less if you get paid be if you allow the prisoners to work and you reap all the profits from their work to Marxist exploitation because you're using a gun there's something just not right I don't think prisoners should work maybe they should do something to pay for their keep but they shouldn't be competing with the private sector that's out of sight of the prison so it should be something that's pretty self-sufficient that's my best thinking about prisons James I used to think it would take a lot more mysticism and collectivism than universities can muster to make the West fall but I'm starting to think maybe those envious losers will get their wish after all who are the envious losers I'm not sure who the losers are the universities yeah I mean it it certainly looks like the enemies of western civilization are gaining it certainly looks like they are increasing their power and the influence and whether the west falls how it looks for the west to fall what that looks like I don't know I mean it's easy to be pessimistic it's easy to envision the end of days well I hate to say well why it for it but there's something about the human experience that we always seek doom and gloom we're always convinced the world's gonna end tomorrow millennial cults have always existed I mean the latest millennial cult is climate change it's just a millennial I mean Greta is a prophet of a millennial cult around climate change that's all she is and it always has existed and it's easy for us as objectivists to know what the truth is and know to easily see the the the dominoes all fall and the whole of civilization go away that was it it it takes longer and more convoluted routes than one would expect I still think I don't see it's it's going to be hard to stop I still think we can stop it but it's going to be really very hard to stop it at this point given the level of mysticism the level of conductivism and in the culture and certainly what the universities are teaching these days the teaching has not to think and the teaching kids not to think and the teaching adults not to think we saw that in COVID the consequence of that and we're going to see that more and more in this culture as we move into the future unfortunately unless we can somehow reverse trend and you know a lot of it is going to be about educational institutions all right wow we have a ton of superjet questions what is going on here yeah there they are yeah a lot of five ten dollar two dollar superjet questions which is great so let's do this let's do a quick round with with though we now have four Ian has left us so please short questions quick short questions I'll try to be quick in my answers so we can get to to answering all of these superchats that have come in okay let's start with Adam have you seen the contemporary korean tv series that has itta won in the title it's something like itta won style although I'm not sure I have not lots of people have recommended it to me but I've not seen it yet and I have to say I've not yet connected with a contemporary korean show I've tried a bunch of them and none of them have really connected there's something I don't know itta won class itta won class yeah a lot of people here have recommended that I haven't tried that one yet I it's next on my list we'll see if we'll see if I can if I watch that I'm gonna be in Korea in two weeks two and a half weeks so I'm actually yeah I know I'm more excited I'm unfortunately probably not gonna make it to the um to the um Mr. Sunshine Theme Park there is a Mr. Sunshine Theme Park in Korea which has all the buildings from the show and you can walk around and the costumes and all of that but you know I'm not unfortunately I probably won't make it this time all right I will add your recommendation to the list of recommendations Adam is that right yes good all right uh Jennifer I just want to say I'm really glad you guys didn't get really hurt and I'm I'm done for today thank you okay thanks Jennifer yeah it was scary uh Daniel there was a title of a daily skim article that said the land of the free got some caveats this year and the point of the article is that in the US we have very little paid paid leave they think we should have 18 weeks for birth adoption so forth and so on what about this idea that you can't be free unless somebody gives you these benefits yes I mean that is the European view that is the kind of if you if you see in the European Declaration of Rights they have 300 something rights that people have um you have a right to a job and you have a right to so many days off and you have a right to August taking off for vacation and you have all of these rights um that is the perception of you know go back to FDR Roosevelt right and his uh for freedoms right the job of government is to bring about these freedom for fear the government is going to stop you from fearing he's going to prevent you from being ever ever being afraid uh freedom from want that's the welfare state I forget what the other two are freedom from but that's that's the beginning of it in America right while the progressives FDR is very influenced by the progressives um the left is very very good at taking words and shifting their meaning um and they did that with liberal they've done it with freedom they've done it with justice they do with almost every concept we have freedom used to be understood as as a the absence of coercion uh as as the the the living in a world in which one could make one's own decisions and and be guided by one's own mind in pursuit of one's own in pursuit of one's own values um but that is a revolution that that understanding of freedom is part of the revolution and and it's not going it's it goes back to altruism it goes back to everything we've talked been talking about forever it's the whole package of the philosophy it's it's not going to be people are not going to get freedom without all of that right if you read biden's uh fact sheet on some of the new taxes it says he's a capitalist yep oh yeah elizabeth won has said she's a capitalist so even capitalism is not our term and these leftist debate claim they're capitalists um and it's it's woods have lost all me to these people they um they re and and when you say but if that's capitalism then then everything's cow you know everything's capitalism and they go yeah well yeah capitalism is pretty much everyone they they have no problem with contradictions they have no this is what they've been taught they have no problem with contradictions they have no problem with everything being great that everything being undefined unspecified bluey they're fine with all of them that's the generation we've got today thank you great thanks daniel john um where do you think this um for lack of better word righteousness comes from with modern-day religious conservatives and the respect that it's okay to be you know for lack of better word as greedy as possible but you know things such as you know sex and stuff is off the limits like why is you know sex demonized from a religious standpoint but the fact that um greed seems to be you know okay despite the fact that jesus you know preached altruism well it's it's it's becoming less okay among conservatives so conservatives want to you know we've got a movement on the right which is anti greed as well but the reason they care more about sex and they care more about abortion and they care more about um uh prayer in the school and things like that than they do about greed is because their Christianity teaches them that what matters is a spiritual world what matters is spiritual activity and they view sex as spiritual they view abortion as a as a spirit of god in in the fetus um and and they view prayer and these other things as fundamentally spiritual and they view the material world as you know what differences it make right um it's not it's not that important we're all sinners after all so you know you go after material stuff that's not what god is really concerned about what he's really concerned about is is is your spiritual state your spiritual condition um martin luther had a really good quote i can't i wish i could quote it by heart i can't but he basically says because there's this debate about usury and the catholic church banned usury and one of the innovations one luther said is luther said yeah let them charge interest it's a it's a horrible sin but not everything in the world is a horrible sin we live in a world of sin this world is a material world it sucks it's terrible it's horrible it's evil we are evil creatures in afterlife there won't be sin in afterlife there's no capitalism in afterlife there's no in heaven there's no greed right this life what we should be concerned about is the spiritual because that's what matters to god that's and and the Protestants now the Catholics this is why Catholics tend to be other than tend to be statists much more the Protestants because the Catholics they want to control everything the Protestants primarily it's the spiritual this is martin again luther's attitude this world the material world is evil and horrible and dirty and disgusting in any way right so it doesn't matter what you do in it it's a spiritual world that matters and the Catholics a little bit more positive about the the world and they want to control it the left take spin this on the left the left and this is a point Rand makes the left on the other hand is materialist right Marxists are materialists they don't believe in the spiritual world so you can do whatever you want in the spiritual world you can complete subjectivity you can sleep with anybody you can have any kind of ideas that all of that doesn't matter what matters is we control the material world because that's what matters materialism it's all about this material world so we control you in the material world and leave you free quote in the spiritual world now that has changed right so the left today is far less Marxist today the left is not materialist in that sense today the left wants to control both the spiritual and the materialist and the right today wants to control both the spiritual and the material that's why we live in so you know it's it's it feels so awful right now in the world because we've got both parties there used to be a balance you could kind of attain at least when the democrats one you had free speech when the republicans one you had economic freedom now you don't get freedom with either one of them you lose all your freedoms with both does that make sense completely I agree thanks Sean all right um let's run through these first we'll start with the $50 one thanks um thanks Emmanuel um although I'm not sure I can I'm not sure I can give you a quick answer for this um what is the objective interpretation of probability when we say the probability of an event is 75 percent what does 75 percent refer to in reality every interpretation of probability I've seen doesn't seem objective this uh it doesn't seem objective um I mean this is a tough question and it's something we don't really have much in the objective is literature about and we need to think it through so I'm actually helping to organize a seminar with a bunch of objectives philosophers and people who use probability because probability is very very very useful we use it we use it in finance all the time use it in science all the time use it in insurance all the time we use it all the time um and so it has to have an objective meaning because of its practical nature and so organizing a seminar to really think about exactly this question and try to understand it so one so I will give you a better answer um once well I will give you an answer I'm not sure I can give you any answer today once we do that seminar I think the seminar is actually it's a while off still I think it's going to be in June of next year um and um I'm looking forward to it this is a good this is a question that really I mean to sit home I mean think about if a long time but it really hit home when I read um which I recommend reading uh what's his name the guy that wrote Enlightenment now um he just wrote a book in defense of reason um and that book deals a lot for him reason is almost all probabilistic thinking right and um Stephen Pinker thank you um Stephen Pinker for him reason is probabilistic thinking now that can't be right but it can't be the probabilities don't have objective meaning they have to have objective meaning now part of it is certainly frequency right so what does it mean to say an event to 70 slightly to happen there's 75 probability that happens it means that historically under these specific conditions um um but not knowing all the causal relationships right not all not knowing all the cause because if you know all the causal relationship you should be able to say say with 100% certainty what will happen but without knowing all the all the but with these general conditions this event happened 75% of the time now I think Bayesianism also uh it needs to be put on um you know objective grounds because I don't think Bayesian is nonsense I think there's something there but it needs to be thought through in terms of how to put it on objective grounds I mean generally the philosophy of science there's a lot of work that needs to be done in philosophy of science a lot of work to be done philosophy of science and this is a cross between the philosophy of math the probability part of it and the philosophy and epistemology and I think there's important work to be done here there's a lot of work to be done here and it's it's it's super exciting but it's you know it has to be objective and then the question is how to use it when to use it and and how to deal with it because one of the questions is how do you how do you square probability with causality and how do you decide you know what is the same and what is different in every situation but it is it's it's it's a it's a tricky question that I think can be made objective and we're certainly going to try we're certainly going to try yes and your confusion is not unusual it's it's it's an important it's an important issue it's a really important issue and and so much of our knowledge about the world has a probabilistic element to it right and it's important for us to at least understand what that even means and and how to relate to it all right let's go over these I've got a bunch of these these I'll have to be short answers let's start and we're by the way we're 188 short of a goal 188 dollars short of a goal if anybody is interested so we raised $460 another 188 to reach the 650 let's see why it says I've heard objective is talking about making money with Blake Schultz's boom is it safe to assume you're also cashing in on seeing his value early no I did I did not invest in boom I did when boom was raising money I did not have money so I never got in on that it's still a long way before you'll be able to cash in on that that is while boom is in the headlines and while boom is is raising a lot of has raised a lot of money I think 600 million dollars so far it's going to need to raise billions of dollars still to get to the point where they actually produce the aircraft and and it's going to be a long time before that the public and and actually people can cash out but or sell I don't know if the company might sell at some point rather than go public but I am not part of that I hope a bunch of objectives make a lot of money and share it on the Iran book show Liam says how can can't be the father of nihilism if he prescribed an objective moral code that must be universally accepted what works of his actually promote nihilism God that's a big question that requires a lengthy answer but the short thing is his moral code is not objective it's the opposite of objective it's intrinsic it's an intrinsic moral code and intrinsicism is always subjective because there is nothing intrinsic so it turns into subjective there's nothing objective about his moral code it's a it's a moral code of of dogma and and duties which are imposed on you by somehow categorical imperatives that are intrinsic in you but nobody can find them nobody knows them right so they're just somehow there so cons whole morality is intrinsicist and therefore ultimately subjectivist and therefore all of the moral codes and ideologies that have come after him whether they go the intrinsicist throughout or the subjectivist wrote he is the father of them so nihilism is just one of the routes that you know Kant doesn't advocate for nihilism he's not a nihilist in that sense he's the father of nihilism in the sense that his ideas necessitate nihilism as the outcome that is nihilism is ultimately a consistent application of Kantian ideas even if he couldn't recognize them and that that is those ideas are basically a separation of reason from reality a turning morality or turning morality away from reality you know a lock at the very least lock is trying to establish morality on the basis of nature what we have no nature Kant takes nature away so you have to establish morality based on some categorical imperative something random something subjective in the end some something completely subjective and subjectivism together with lack no reason because if you take away the connection between the mind and reality what are you left with you're left with emotions you're left with whims so and what does women worship lead to nihilism necessitate nihilism so nihilism is the end of Kantian philosophy it's not the thing Kantian philosophy advocates for it's the consequence of it even if Kant didn't realize it that's the best short answer I can give James asked is observation equivalent to scientific method it doesn't seem as rigorous no of course not observation is one aspect of the scientific method the scientific method is one element of the scientific method is observation but observing what how then what what do you do with the observation you have to abstract from it so it's a piece in a sequence of of things that constitute the scientific method wow you guys are asking a lot of epistemology questions today and challenging me um Michael asked why do people know more about an alcohol capitalism than objectivism whenever I bring up radical free market ideas people say you are an ant cap when will objectivism be what the cool kids are into I don't know but one reason ant cap is more popular is because it requires it's less demanding it's like you know it's it's it's consistent with altruism it's consistent with subjectivism it's consistent with nihilism it's consistent with whatever you want it to be so you don't have to give it with Christianity it's consistent with whatever you want it to be so it's it's it's a completely whatever right and it's it's you know I meant called then I'll call the equivalent of the ant caps hippies of the right and she was right it's it's a it's a kind of a philosophy of whatever and that's easier for people to understand to accept than whoa particular epistemology you have to go by reason a particular moral code seven virtues that you know a real system a real philosophy um that's much harder much harder um um but that's we have to get beyond that so the less thinking the less thinking a culture is the more ang caps will be popular ang caps is the smart unthinking attracted to to to to anarcho capitalism which is a contradiction in terms of said many times hopper camber will the third world continue getting richer despite growing statism I don't know is a real risk it doesn't which will be very sad uh what will the third learn third world learn from the rise of statism will it encourage them to become statists you know who will they trade with as the rest of the world hunkers down in in uh you know uh unshoring we're going to bring manufacturing back if everybody brings manufacturing back who's going to trade who are the third world going to trade with now I'm not pessimistic about it I'm pretty optimistic I think the third world will continue getting richer because they you know they have enough lessons that hopefully they can learn at least some it turns out a little bit of freedom goes a long way and and they can mimic a little bit of freedom I also see places like Africa forming free trade alliances so like the whole most of Africa today is one free trade zone between the different countries in Africa ultimately that'll help them become richer so I do think third world countries are going to get richer but a slower pace no question a slower pace than that is possible hopper camber are we seeing population decreases because people are becoming more educated in middle class and are at point uh choosing to have less kids or is it because people are more cynical about the future I think it's both right so suddenly the the decrease from having eight kids to two to four is a decrease that has to do with being educated middle class and and also that has to do with the fact that kids are not dying it has to do with child mortality so as countries become richer fewer kids die and therefore you have fewer kids because they're going to survive so you don't have to diversify having lots of kids is a form of diversification it's also an issue of the children don't have to take care of their parents because the parents can save because they can produce more than they consume and therefore save so the kids don't have to work for the parents so you can have fewer kids so you do uh so you have two to four kids why does it go from two to four kids to zero or to zero to one I think that has to do with the cynicism about the future and and you see it the more cynical the culture is the fewer kids they have the more pessimistic they are the fewer kids they have James asked is it more likely the next few decades will be ugly spiritually sluggish economically but not homicidal mystical and dictatorial it's possible that it just becomes ugly spiritually and sluggish economically but unlikely because sluggish economically and ugly spiritually usually leads to dictatorial and bloody so I don't see how people don't rebel against sluggish economically and ugly spiritually now we could be slightly ugly spiritually and chugging along economically without really going into depression but just somehow eking out small economic growth and maybe we put around like that for a few decades before we either go full laissez faire or go full authoritarian maybe maybe that's the outcome prediction is is hot and not recommended I mean you got to think about the future but it's very hard to actually predict it um in detail Harper asked is gravity actually a force or just curves on the fabric of foot dimension time space really really you're asking me this question how the hell do I know I have no idea I now again I don't think time is a dimension whatever it is I don't think it's a dimension in the sense that we understand dimension time is is a measurement of movement what exists is movement now this is a question for heavy bits we're not for me but I don't know what gravity is I don't think anybody really knows but I think it's probably a force paul azuz says keep on going not going anyway all right michael says um have you been have you been too or considered seeing a therapist at some point in your life I have not doesn't mean you shouldn't I just have not and I think about a psychologically healthy as as the people people I know I'm on the healthy side of the spectrum um so I have not I you know a lot of but I know a lot of people who have and I have learned a lot of people who should see a therapist so I'm I'm very pro therapist generally even though I have never seen one um michael asked why was bill clinton forced to say the era big government is over seems like we had a real moment in the 80s and 90s and we somehow blew it yeah we did and we did have a moment in the 80s and 90s there was a general consensus that big government was a disaster that it had led to the disastrous policies of the 60s and 70s that led to a stagflation uh to unemployment uh that it was not a force for good uh that's how Reagan got elected ultimately and that had momentum up until George Bush and and and Bush is the pivotal pivot away from it really 9 11 but even before that Bush is uh what is a passionate servicism uh was a move away from that uh and um I think that uh you know it's just accelerated away from that attitude with Bush Obama Trump Biden I mean that is a sequence of people each one wanting government to be bigger and have a bigger role uh we've moved away from individualism away from personal responsibility um and away from limited government and towards both the right and the left embracing government as involved in managing our lives in one way or another all right Liam does Dr. Pica think we've reached a turning point I've basically a a point of no return not a turning point a point of no return I I don't think I should comment on what Leonard thinks I I I think he should if he wants to comment he will at some point or he won't but I I don't think it should be filtered through me it does nobody any good for me to do that Michael does your subconscious engage in reason when an infant first develops language is that reason no your subconscious you know the the integration is necessary an aspect of reason but the full fledged even an even an infant has to focus their mind in order to start the process going so the the reason is at least a significant chunk of what happens under the guise of reason is guided by a conscious mind it doesn't mean all the work some of the work is done by the census but it's guided by a conscious mind by a conscious effort by conscious effort Liam 400 years from now when every nation on the planet is objective is do we only see separate nations in case one goes bad if none would ever win bad why would we need separate nations we don't I mean you know by then maybe we have multiple planets and maybe people on earth are all one nation and the people of Mars a different nation and the people in asteroids are being oppressed and they want a revolution now I'm channeling that TV show that I really like that I forgot its name anyway somebody will remind me yeah the only reason you need multiple nations is just in case but there's no there's no beyond that I don't know of any reason but it's reason enough which reason enough to keep it Michael ask in England banks are starting to do 50 emojis that your kids can take over is this a good idea or a sign that unaffordable housing is the new norm in the west um I mean 50-year mortgage is a great idea when there's no inflation but no bank is going to do a 50-year mortgage fixed rate for 50 years today in England or anywhere else so maybe in England they were starting to do that a few years ago when interest rate looked like there wouldn't be zero forever if banks did that they are going to get screwed in a big big way inflation is terrible for lenders who lent fixed rate long term in England in the 19th century loans were being made for 100 years 100 year loans 100 year bonds because people knew that inflation was basically zero and will always be zero until it wasn't so not good policy for the bank great for borrowers I take a 50-year mortgage right now love it the expanse is the name of the show thank you Joe the expanse a good sci-fi show on on prime on amazon prime really good particularly the first season wow we still got a bunch of questions god and 188 shorts somebody step in here with a hundred dollar question or something all right michael asks what makes me furious are the intellectuals who are going to cling on to the mixed economy for the next 100 years not realizing how much they are holding humanity back in uncalculable ways yes me too absolutely michael all right gale has stepped in 50 thank you gale do you think no bad capitalist andrew henderson is a friend of objectivism i mean i don't know i i don't know how philosophically is i don't know um yeah i don't know how philosophically is i you know i i think the idea of um he does he helps people find the best place to live given the circumstances um around the world and he certainly pro freedom and an individual individual choose a choice um so um you know i i support his work i i think it's good good stuff um i'm sure a lot of the a lot of people have stuff at him because he encourages people to leave the u.s but not me um but i don't know how close he is to objectivism i mean encourage to interview him i think he's contacted me a few times to try to arrange an interview i haven't done it yet i'll try at some point and maybe we'll discover uh if he has a relationship to objectivism and if so what it is um yeah i mean he generally is pro capitalism he's generally pro capitalism anti redistribution anti regulation but how you know a friend of objectivism is really an issue of philosophical foundations so i i just don't know okay frank asks have you a jr token uh rand's essay about a tiller and the witch doctor is evidence in some of his works with kings depending on evil advisors yeah i mean i think the idea that um the idea of a tiller and the witch doctor is a reflection of reality and as such um has always been uh in the part of the mythology and the storytelling and and and the books and novels so i i don't think i don't think the reality of a tiller and the witch doctor is new what is new is who identification of it and who i that identification of it is a principle kind of an idea that is a thread through history and the explanation of why it exists why it's needed why the bad guys needed what they get from each other why they survive why the people don't overthrow them all of that everything else that's in that essay for the new intellectual that's new but the actual characterization of a tiller and the witch doctor that is a strong man who needs an evil intellectual to help him that i think is people probably observed and fictionalized and saw in history they just didn't see the big picture the the the the abstract ideas that animate that michael asks it amazes me how how little capitalism um we have we have produced so much wealth we can afford to support an intellectual parasite class dedicated to its own destruction yes it is truly amazing how a little bit of freedom goes a long way you can create a lot of wealth just like a china with a little bit of freedom imagine what they could do if they had a lot of freedom truly truly amazing all right we're down to uh short 138 dollars so 350 dollar questions and we're done uh james asks what given what happened to selam and rushti do you think political violence will get to the point where you'll need to bring bodyguards to speak on stage um i'm going to say i hope so but not in the sense that i i i hope political violence increases but in the sense that even today if i became prominent enough i would need bodyguards so i want to be prominent enough so that i need bodyguards that's my goal in life is to have bodyguards um because i say outrageous things that piss off a lot of people if they hold it they don't hear it i want to piss them off i want to get them to the point where they want to fight me right where they want to demonstrate i did that in after 9 11 so after 9 11 i did have bodyguards not bodyguards but i had security every one of my talks i wore for for quite a while for many of my talks i wore bulletproof vest i had protesters i was attacked on a number of different occasions by protesters so it happened after 9 11 i want to sustain it i want i want them to come after me because i advocate for self-interest or for capitalism that would be my goal but i don't i don't see it happening anytime soon unfortunately and tifa maybe but i want big demonstrations i want thousands of people to be out there every time i come and speak yelling and screaming and wanting to wanting to wanting to kill me that will mean i've succeeded right that will mean we are winning so that sense i wanted not as long as i'm under the radar even a political violence increases they probably are not coming after me michael asks i often hear the objection that objectivist arguments are circular why are people making this mistake well because we always connect objectivism to reality and they're not used to that they used to some kind of long chain of abstractions it goes nowhere and if you actually connect to reality they don't know what to do with that and i think that's why they mistakenly assert circularity liam what percentage of people today have souls i think the vast majority are dead behind their eyes either unfocused drifting or superficial narrow narrow minded narcissists sadly i agree with you liam i think a majority of people don't have souls in the fourth sense of what we mean self-created soul that's rare and some people create parts of them but not a whole it's very rare james asks are asian cultures less nihilistic yeah i think they are they didn't have can't um they didn't even have to let they they they are in many respects you know nihilism is an affliction of the wealthy they're too busy trying to survive to be nihilistic they value their lives because they know how precious they are they're not easily destroyed they are they're still poor enough for that i think nihilism is uh is something of intellectuals and and you need some wealth um hop a camo would you say communism lost but fascism won yeah i think so i think the future is fascist not communist it serves the interest of those in charge much better it's easier to manage for them they can still try to grow an economy i think china today is fascist not communist and i think that's the model of the future because you can still get people enough economic freedom so that they think they own property so that they behave as if they do so they have incentive to produce um communism doesn't have that um and and therefore um i think results in poverty much faster than fascism uh you can have you can still have some limited wealth creation michael do you like uh did you like the a series ban about this i did uh you know it it's it's not romantic art but it's it's uh it was dramatic and very educational and very interesting and it's an era in history that's very interesting so um i did like the show and i thought they they built out the relationships quite good and uh they explained kind of the history and what was going on and the the the the the horror of war and what it does to people um bodily and and to their soul quite quite well in a very well major uh hopper asks what exactly is the measurement is measurement emission why is it so groundbreaking epistemology wow that's a five dollar question um measurement emission is when you take um a category like um chairs and they all have certain characteristic in common but some are big some are small um some have uh so what you're doing is taking away the specific measurements of their characteristics some are thick some are thin uh some are made of wood to the extent that the material they made of is a measurement you abstract away from all those measurements right you emit the the the particulars and what you keep is the the abstraction the the the the the the the basic um unit um that is well i have to devote more time to that one because that it's super important but i can't answer it kind of on one foot um i'm trying to think of another example uh love all right so love so love is a concept that that uh um you know is is about a certain type of esteem you have for another but it doesn't tell you how much right so you can love your children you can have uh you can love your wife you can love um uh flowers so what you emit is all the particulars the measurements the particular measurements of you predict the the the scope of it the strength of it you predict the the particulars of it and what you've got is this is the this is the emotion the loved one probably doesn't work quite as well because i'm not sure it's the same exactly the same category or the same concept love children wife ones romantic love ones not but um it's uh it's all it's not about reproduction at all it's it's about the the values that it represents the value they represent to you but what you're emitting is the particular value and what you're you're both emitting the particular value in the particularly the particular intensity um by saying you love something you're not saying how much or which what it is exactly you love um right so that one requires a a longer explanation a longer explanation we are not determined by evolution evolution sets certain ground works but it doesn't determine us uh evolution does not determine who i will love the evolution does not determine um it gives me the capacity to do it but it doesn't determine what i love it doesn't determine the capacity to love and it doesn't determine that i form the concept of love indeed there are certain cultures that never form the concept of love the forming of a concept is a human abstract achievement that is forming the concept and we're talking about concept formation we're not talking about the emotion itself we're talking about the concept that represents that emotion so um evolution doesn't form our concept for us evolution doesn't give us concept we're not born with concepts we're not born with concepts so um evolution just gives us the the biology to make all of that possible it gives us the framework to make it possible but the cultures that don't have the concept of love the concept the cultures that don't have the concept of chair because they don't have chairs we sit on the ground so if you sit on the ground you never form the concept chair if you don't have multiple different types of chairs you don't really have a if you don't have actually have things you sit on that are produced by man you know then you you don't have so sitting on a rock does not make it a chair right so you you never form the concept chair so concept is something that requires human beings to form and the fact that some languages don't have some concepts just suggests that it's not evolutionary it's not evolutionary all right last question before you go linda last question um kowi says time is a measure of motion that's right it is not literally out there part from us it is a certain perspective on motion at least that is my understanding that is my understanding as well i'm i don't exactly know how to fit that in with um with uh uh einstein physics but i don't have to and i don't really care to um i'll let i'll let the physicists and the philosophers of science deal with that one wow we were very epistemological today um you know hold on to those questions because we we should really have those questions answered by people who could give you better answers than me doing it on the fly oh okay i am exhausted uh we didn't make our goal which is disappointing given that i just came back from a long hiatus but i'm sure we'll do better tomorrow so tomorrow we're going to talk about student debt we're going to talk about paying back student debt thank you valdrin i appreciate the support um and we'll talk about the uh biden's attempt to make it all go away uh that should be a fun show i'll talk to you all tomorrow have a great week um and don't forget to like the show before you leave and support the show on patreon subscribe star or you're on bookshow.com so i support thanks to our panelists thanks for all your support thanks for the questions i'll see you all tomorrow bye everybody