 The radical, fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights. This is the Iran Book Show. All right, everybody. Welcome. Welcome to Iran Book Show on this Thursday, November 2nd. As you can see, those of you watching my video, I am back in Puerto Rico, back at home. I got in late last night, so I'm still a little jet lagged. Take me today to recover, hopefully tomorrow I'll be back to normal. Before we get started, fully let me a couple of things. One is, tonight at 8 p.m., we've got an interview with Scott McDonald. We're going to be talking about all things China. I think it's going to be fascinating, really, really interesting. You can read Scott's bio on a preview for the show. He has deep, deep knowledge of China, both at his work in the U.S. military and now as a Ph.D. students and academic. He knows a lot about Chinese philosophy and how Chinese philosophy drives decision-making in China. If we believe, at least I believe, that ideas drive history, then this is going to be fascinating because we'll get to the heart of the ideas driving China and from that try to extrapolate what we think is the future in terms of what China is likely or not likely to do. Also discuss China and the current geopolitical kind of world, that is, China vis-a-vis the Ukraine world, China vis-a-vis the war in Israel, China vis-a-vis Taiwan and the U.S. A lot to cover and I think it's going to be super interesting. The Biden administration keeps ratcheting it up. Trade restrictions on China, so what does Scott think about that? I'm really curious. I'm excited about it. This is geopolitically other than the two wars we discussed, the most important topic right now and maybe for the U.S. in certainly long-term, possibly the most important topic but the relationship to the other topics is going to be crucial as well, so I'm looking forward to that. 8 p.m. East Coast time tonight. Join us. I'll be interviewing Scott McDonald on China. Let's see, just a reminder that the Einwand Institute is a sponsor of the show. Please go to Einwand.org, Einwand.org slash share here. Right now the big thing that they're really encouraging everybody to consider is to come to Einwand.com Europe, the Einwand Institute conference in Europe. It's going to be this year in March. It's going to be in the fabulous, unbelievable city of Amsterdam, so if you're a student and you would like a scholarship, now is the time to apply, so start applying for scholarships. Please do that, Einwand.org slash start here, start here one word. So apply for the scholarship and those of you who don't want a scholarship but just want to come and pay your way and come to a great conference, please do so as well. Start looking at registration. I think the location in Amsterdam is still not set, but the dates are set. It's going to be, I'm going to be speaking, on-call is going to be there. I can't remember who the third speaker is. Anyway, I'll figure it out and let you know next time, but please go to there and you can also see other things that are being highlighted by the Einwand Institute, like all the stuff AOI is produced over the Hamas War and at the Shrug Desi Contest and other things, many of those relevant for students, but also for the rest of you, so please check it out. All right, let me just clean this up, you know, I'm trying to get all lined up there. Let's see what else. OK, so we are talking about, we've got a bunch of talk about today. We're back to the format of, back to the format of daily news shows. So we will cover the news highlights of the news news during the morning shows, these shows, and then we will do more in-depth shows in the evening, including the interview show tonight. On Saturday, I think we've got to ask me anything show, including, for those of you, $25 and above, you will have availability to be on live, on video. So if you haven't received a link for that, let Angela know or let me know at youronbookshow.com. But other than that, tomorrow there'll be another new show and next week's a little tricky because I'm traveling again. I'll be in Chicago and Colorado, well, in Utah and Colorado. The events that are public are available on the website, on youronbookshow.com. I think events, just click on events and you can find it. OK, let's jump into our content for today. And look at what's going on in the world. We'll start with the one in Gaza, Hamas was initiated by Hamas. And then we'll go to the one Ukraine and then we'll do we'll talk a little bit about the economy and AI, artificial intelligence regulation. So as I think I said last time I was on the Israeli army has now launched ground operation in Gaza. It is doing it very cautiously, systematically. It's committing forces in kind of a staggered fashion. The primary focus right now is on Gaza City. Gaza City is the main launching point of Hamas. It is the place where it is believed most of us fighters are. It is also the whole of Gaza, as we've talked about 25 miles long, about four to six miles wide is covered with tunnels, anywhere between, I don't know, four to five hundred miles of tunneling underneath. That is a lot for such a small piece of land. Some of those tunnels, very, very deep. Some of them less deep, some of them more built up than others. Some of them you could drive a car through. Some of them you can squeeze the human being through. So a wide variety of tunnels. It is believed strongly that the hostages, whatever hostages are still alive in those tunnels. It is also true that Hamas has massive stockpiles of weapons, food, oil to for generators. The tunnels are electrified. Hamas can survive inside the tunnels for a very long time. To hell with the civilians above, that is not Hamas is concerned. Hamas is not concerned about the lives of Muslims, of Miamot or Muslims. It is much more concerned about Jihad against against Israel. So the focus, the entire focus of Hamas is on their ability to kill Israelis in however many Palestinians after they die for it. So be it, indeed, to some extent, they're encouraging more deaths of Palestinians because they want that for the PR campaign. Anyway, Israel has I was going to show you a map. I was not obviously not organized today enough to get this map up. But let me see if I can show you the map. All right, let's let's do it. Tut, tut, tut, yeah, there we go. All right, there's the map. So you can see, let me blow it up a little bit. Put it up there, go like this. There we go. So that's that's mainly going to Gaza. You can see where it says Gaza is kind of the border between Southern Gaza and Northern Gaza. For weeks now, the Israelis have been asking Gazans to evacuate the north and to move to the south. They basically told them that that, you know, they will be relatively protected in the south and that most of the military activities are going to be in the north. I assume that as a consequence of that, a lot of Hamas fighters have moved to the south and that that's going to be a problem for the Israeli offensive later on. You can see at the top of the map, three arrows. Those are Israeli military advances, one along the coast, one kind of in the middle in the north and one from the northeast near Beit Hanun. So Israel is is squeezing the Gaza from the north. And then at the same time, if you look at the south, middle, what you're seeing is Israeli troops trying to completely cut off the south and the north. So along there's a apparent attempt in Soko Gaza City. You see those woods there. There's a line through that. That line separates the north and the south of Gaza. Israeli troops basically have control of that line. And now a slowly, as we speak, really, the night is falling, but I'm sure there'll be active at night, slowly moving into Gaza City and slowly moving into the built up areas. Most of this area is built up. Most of this area is homes, roads, alleys, very narrow alleys, very difficult to maneuver with tanks, very difficult to maneuver with on personnel carriers. Snipers on the top, you know, a Hamas with anti-tank weapons and anti-antia, you know, personnel carrier weapons. And so this whole area, of course, also covered with tunnels. So you might pass an area and then the Hamas might pop up from behind you because they might have a tunnel exit just behind you. So Israel is going to do what it can to try to destroy those tunnels, try to block the exits wherever they can find them. They are using some of the most advanced technology in the world to find the tunnels, identify the tunnels and then destroy the tunnels. But none of that is easy. None of that is straightforward. It is tunnel warfare, some of the hardest warfare one can really imagine. You know, very few wars have been fought in tunnels, but Israel is going to have to fight it here through tunnels. The last war that Israel thought that it would fight in tunnels was in Beirut in 1982, but it ended up not having to do it because of Reagan. Reagan bailed out the PLO by allowing them safe passage out. Israel had some experience with the tunnels in Gaza from earlier wars, I think in 2014, not very successful. Hopefully they've learned their lessons. Hopefully they have big weapons that can blow up these tunnels. Hopefully they can block them. Of course, every time they blow up a tunnel in here, here's the interesting fast that nobody's talking about. Every time people talk about the fact that Palestinian civilians are dying when these explosions are happening, the Palestinian innocents are happening. What about the reality that every time these explosions are happening, it is likely that Israeli innocents are dying, that the hostages are dying. The reality is that Israel has to defend itself. Israel has to engage in warfare while knowing that its actions might very well be the actions that kill the very people, some of the people that they're trying to save, their own citizens. And that is just a reality of war. I've said from the beginning Israel has to, in order to win this, assume that those hostages are already dead and then do what they need to do in order to eviscerate them. So that is going on. Very little coverage about what's happening inside, partially because Internet Service is cut. Israel has no incentive of letting us know. But and, and, you know, Hamas is not being able to generate videos. And to the extent that they do, they generate the videos of the poor Palestinians dying. But again, every one of those, the key thing to remember, every death, every death here is the moral responsibility of Hamas. These deaths are necessary. They're inevitable. Israel is asked all civilians to evacuate. The fact that they didn't either suggest that they don't care or it suggests that Hamas didn't let them leave. And then again, the blood is on Hamas's hands. Anywhere you look at this, Israel is not morally responsible for the deaths that it inflicts in a war of self defense, in an area where it has warned people, told them to evacuate and for whatever reason, they have refused. So but this is this is going to be brutal so far, as far as we can tell as of yesterday, but probably this is even more dated. Seventeen young Israeli kids have have already died in in in this attack on Gaza. Ten of them died when their personnel carrier was destroyed and everybody inside was killed, which is an interesting phenomena because these personnel carriers and Israeli tanks are massively protected to protect the lives of the people inside. So again, Israel is going to have to figure out what happened. There was wrong there and figure out how the whole thing could be destroyed and everybody inside died. It's not how this is supposed to work. So that is some kind of failure, which they will have to figure out what's going on. Seventeen so far, young kids have died. I, you know, if you can find the photos and names of all those who are being killed online, it is truly tragic and horrific. And again, every one of these deaths is on Hamas and every one of these deaths just makes it more, you know, more necessary to destroy Hamas and to do as much from the air as possible so that fewer Israeli soldiers die as they enter this hellhole that is Gaza City and try to do it through street by street tunnel by tunnel fighting. The big hole that you saw, the big crater that you saw, all the networks were carrying that happened in the Jabalia camp was a consequence of the fact that one of these bombs had hit one of these tunnels. The tunnels had ammunitions in them. All of that imploded, creating a massive crater. Yeah, many people died. There was another explosion in Jabalia camp today. More Palestinians have died as a consequence of that. But at the same time, according to some sources, at least 50 Hamas fighters were killed in these explosions and a couple of senior Hamas members, if you think about the fact that there are probably 40,000 Hamas troops in Gaza overall, there's a lot more dying that's going to have to be necessary for Israel to actually fulfill its promise to eliminate and eradicate Hamas from Gaza. A lot of commanders still have to die. A lot of Hamas troops have to die. And with them, a lot of civilians will be dying as well. That is reality. That is war. It is brutal and especially sad as a lot of Israelis are going to have to die. And that is part of the price. Part of the price of security, part of the price of freedom, part of the price of liberty, sadly, is that you have to fight for it sometimes. In the meantime, just more broadly, the Houthis in Yemen have indeed engaged and they've been sending missiles from Yemen, which is far away to try to reach southern Israel. Some of those missiles are reaching, some of them are not. The ones that are all reaching, the drones and the missiles that are reaching, again, far away, the Israeli defense system has knocked them all down, including the first use ever of an arrow to missile defense, which knocked down a ballistic missile that was launched by the Houthis. The Houthis cannot launch these things and do not have any missiles without Iran. So this is clearly Iran attacking Israel. Again, nobody wants to talk about that. Nobody wants to make the connection too explicit because that would require action against Iran. I assume and hope that at some point, maybe now, maybe in the future, Israel will launch a significant and dramatic you know, air offensive against the Houthis in Yemen and take them out. So that is that is my hope. Let's see. Yeah, at the same time, there being just in the last 48 hours from what I can read, 47 attacks against US bases in Iraq and Syria all launched by Iranian affiliated organizations. I don't know casualty numbers, 27 attacks, drones, missiles, artillery attacks. And the US is doing nothing. The US is doing almost nothing with regard. And then again, on the northern border, Israel, Hezbollah is constantly attacking, but not on a massive scale, moderate scale probing here and there, seeing how Israel responds. So far, Israel's responded very meekly. As I said in day two of this thing, Israel needs to launch a preemptive strike against Hezbollah and wipe as much of them out as possible, as early as possible, as quickly as possible. Don't give the strategic initiative to the Iranians and to Hezbollah. It is true, though, that Israel is now engaged in a land invasion of Gaza and all the promises of Hezbollah and the promises of Iran to fully engage with Israel when they did that have been false. They're ultimately cowards. They're afraid they know what Israel is capable of doing to them and they have decided not to engage. So it might be but Israel should still take the initiative and not wait for them to decide when to engage and how to engage. Of course, the President Biden is calling for a pause in the fighting between Israel Hamas. He's calling for ceasefire so that Assad is just going to be freed in Gaza. That is so when asked in Minnesota, I guess, Minnesota about about this, he said, I think we need a pause. A pause means give time to get the prisoners out. That would be a massive mistake. Israel should allow for no pause. It should take advantage of whatever momentum it has. And it should work hard to to crush as much of Hamas Hamas. Hamas needs to be cornered and whatever prisoners at this point are going to be released are going to be released through the efforts of the Israeli military, not through negotiating. But who knows, I would, would I be surprised if there was a pause tomorrow? No, would I be surprised if the Israelis capitulated to Biden's pressure? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. All right, just a few other things. Remember the Abraham Accords, all those, the wonderful Accords that the Trump administration got a peace between Israel and all these other Arab countries and all these other Arab countries supportive of Israel and, you know, just kumbaya and all one big happy family. And anyway, maybe we'll see how all this works out. I was skeptical at the time. I'm still skeptical. These Arab countries, you know, they have very narrow interests. And when they're into shift, they will shift these. This is not real peace. This is not lasting peace. This is not truly a recognition of Israel's right to exist. This is in a sense by these countries, mostly a temporary ceasefire so they can extract whatever they can from Israel. Anyway, Bahrain, one of the signatures that Abraham Accords has reportedly, I don't have confirmation for this yet, but I wouldn't be surprised at all, has reportedly expelled the Israeli ambassador while also halting its economic participation with Israel in opposition to Israel defending itself in the Gaza Strip. So these are the friends that you have. Also, of note, there are videos. You have to be very, very careful about videos you see online. There's a video, for example, online right now of several tanks with smoke plumes coming out of it. Hamas is distributing this video claiming it is several Israeli tanks having been hit and you can see some tanks moving around in the background. They look very realistic. And yet this, for example, one video I saw is a video game footage from the game on the three, which is being passed off as Israeli combat losses in Gaza. So be careful. I mean, the same thing was done in by the Russians in Ukraine. Hamas has a very, very sophisticated cyber propaganda operation and just be careful not to be caught up and share stuff or even take too seriously stuff that is that is ultimately just video game footage. There's a bunch of video game footage also in terms of knocking down stuff in the sky at night and just a lot of the stuff going around. And finally, South Korea, South Korea, the brutal dictator of South Korea, Donald Trump's best friend has now supposedly, according to South Korean intelligence, has ordered officials to begin providing support for the Palestinians to send them weapons and start weapons shipments to any Iran-backed militias across the Middle East, including anti-tank missiles and anything else necessary. So our friends in North Korea on the right side of history, as always. So from here, we can, we can, you know, that's a good transition. North Korea, North Korea, North Korea, North Korea sending us South Korea intelligence is appointing North Korea is doing this to brutal dictator of North Korea. Sorry about that. If I said South Korea, I apologize. Let's see. On top of that, let's move to Ukraine for a minute. North Korea, according to news stories coming out right now, North Korea has provided, what was the number? One million rounds of artillery to Russia. One million rounds. I don't know how many of those rounds are good and actually fire. But North Korea has become the arsenal of the Russians. It says a lot about Russia that it needs that kind of help. But anyway, North Korea, part of the axis of evil, is now providing Russia with ammunition to fight Ukraine. So the one Ukraine is is basically grinding to a stalemate. Ukrainians are still advancing on several fronts, but advancing quite slowly, much slower than many of us, including myself, anticipated they would. It turns out that Russian defenses have been much stronger. They spent the winter mining everything, building trenches, creating obstacles for the Ukrainian army that the Ukrainians have had really hard time overcoming. Ukraine does not have air superiority, so it's very difficult to clear the obstacles as they move forward. You really need air support in order to do that. Of course, the Russians don't have air superiority either. But the Ukrainians just are not being able to advance significantly. There's a number of areas, particularly in the South where they've had some breakthroughs, but they can't but they can't push forward. On the other hand, Russia launched a massive attempt at a counteroffensive in Donetsk province. It's hard to imagine how many troops they lost in this counteroffensive. Potentially tens of thousands. Many, many, many dozens of armored vehicles. And they were just crushed. They were completely destroyed. So Russia can't move. Russia's attempted a counteroffensive in the north to go after Kharkiv against. They've attempted an offensive in the center in Donetsk province. They've attempted to combat the Ukrainian advances in the South and Russia has failed in all of those front. So what you get right now is a stalemate with Ukraine still advancing slowly. Winter about to set in. The winter will be an advantage, ultimately, for Ukraine. You know, Russia, Ukraine is in a much better strategic position right now to advance during the winter. If you remember, it took seven, eight months last year for the Russians to take one little tiny town and they lost a lot of people over to try to take that town. It looks like that town will be, you know, might be retaken back by by the Ukrainians any time now or in the months to come. So it's going to be it's going to be a long, brutal, slow winter. It's going to be a slog. Neither one of those countries is going to do is going to move very far. But, you know, Russian economy is struggling. It has only kept afloat by the fact that all prices are so high and that and the fact that all prices are so high has allowed the Russians to generate a lot of revenue from even from lower quantities being sold. They still generate a lot of revenue. And the fact that they can get ammunition from North Korea and the fact that the Iranians and the Chinese are supplying the Russians are keeping them afloat. But economically, Russia is in deep trouble and in and militarily both countries in deep trouble with the prospects of both countries being bleak. And of course, the cause of this primarily is the slowness by which the West has provided Ukraine with weapon systems, the slowness by which by which Ukraine was provided with tanks. And then F-16s have not yet been in operation. So hard to tell what will happen next spring. If the U.S. and the West continue supporting Ukraine into next spring, then I think Ukraine has a real chance of kicking the Russians out. They will have had the weapons over a longer period of time. But the access of evil of Russia, Russia, Iran, Hamas, North Korea and China, that access, unfortunately, is solidifying. The more time we give them to solidify, the less committed the West is actually for defending himself. But the access of terror, the access of evil, Russia and Iran and Hamas are definitely, definitely part of this. So let's hope Ukraine does better than expected and destroys Russia. I mean, you know, I still have some hope that that can be done, but we will see. All right, let's see. So yes, so Ukraine still making advances, definitely slow. U.S. economy, a couple of things that are interesting about the U.S. economy. One is the GDP numbers for this, you know, the third quarter. We're pretty stunning, pretty stunning growing at an annual rate of 5%. And nobody, I think, expected it to grow that fast. Nobody feels like the U.S. economy is doing that well. Nobody can exactly understand what is going on. I think that the GDP numbers are just being distorted by the level of government spending and how much government spending. But it is those level of GDP growth are consistent with the low unemployment rate and the fact that there's very little unemployment in the United States right now. Even, you know, workforce participation has been an uptick. But by every measure, the U.S. economy seems to by the measures followed and tracked by the U.S. government seems to be doing way better than anybody expected. Certainly way better than I expected, way better than anybody expected. At the same time, fears of recession still exists. Fears of what's coming next still exist. Everybody thinks that the issue has to drop. Something bad has to happen. All this really, really bad stuff, you know, cannot, cannot really continue. In addition, inflation is really sticky. It is not coming down. It is kind of stuck at around the 4% level and is not moving down. At least price inflation as the government measures it. That is why we some, on the other hand, you know, the Fed is saying it probably won't raise interest rates again. That the market is taking as a positive thing. The market is up today, for example, because of that. But, you know, in the 10-year bond is coming, the yield in the 10-year bond is coming down, which means people expect inflation to ultimately come down. I don't know why they think that, where the indications of that. In other words, I think the consensus has to be, and I'm part of this. Right? Nobody really knows. The economy is such a complex thing. It's got so many moving parts. There's so much going on at every given point of time. And it's particularly given the global nature of the economy. I don't think anybody knows. We still don't know exactly what's going to happen with China and the Chinese economy and the impact of the Chinese economy in real trouble. We really don't know how everything is going to evolve, interest rates and everything else are going to evolve in the United States. It's, yeah, again, all the models and most of the predictions would have expected a recession by now. We still could get a recession next year, but it's not clear at all that that is actually going to happen. And then, you know, interest rates are going up across the world. Even Japan now is about to go all positive interest rates, no negative interest rates for the first time in like 13 years. We will have no bonds, no government bonds selling out there, no any bonds selling out there, negative interest rates. So the bizarre, weird, unprecedented experiment with negative interest rates appears to be over. Again, they have to be consequences. I think the consequence is stagnation. The consequence is inflation. But the stagnation we're about to experience and have experience and will experience is probably the biggest one. But there could be worse than that. So there could be other shoes to drop, if you will, other really bad stuff to happen. It's just nobody knows what it's going to happen. So the US economy continues to bewilder, continues to be something that is very, very hard to pin down and understand and really comprehend what exactly is going on and why. So sorry, I wish I had a forecast and I could tell you this is where the S&P 500 is heading. This is when recession is going. Watch out for your jobs here. Anybody who gives you that, I believe, doesn't know what they're talking about. I mean, they might ultimately get lucky and be right about something, but they don't actually know what they're talking about. This is way, way, way too difficult a task, almost like a central planning task to model and figure out all these moving parts and figure out what's going to happen. All you can say is bad stuff is coming. But what that bad stuff looks like and when it's coming and how it manifests itself just can't do. All right, finally, two days ago, I think it was two days ago, Biden signed an executive order regulating artificial intelligence. Regulating artificial intelligence and AI may be one of the most revolutionary technologies to be adopted in the world, has the potential to change almost every industry, almost every profession has the potential to increase productivity dramatically, the potential to improve human life on planet Earth dramatically. And but the firm ongoing, particularly from the industry and other experts has been, you know, unbelievably unbelievable. And as a consequence, the pressure on the administration to regulate has been intense. As a consequence, you know, Congress won't do anything. Congress is ineffectual, is basically unable to do its job. And not that I advocate for Congress to pass legislation to regulate the industry, but if somebody is going to regulate the industry, you would think the law would have to pass through Congress. That's how our constitutional system is built. Well, since Congress won't do its job, Biden has jumped in. He put out a hundred page, I think it's 110 pages of an executive order, executive order of 110 pages. That that should somehow be unconstitutional. That is absurd and ridiculous. It's giving legislative power to the executive. This has been getting worse and worse and worse, at least since the administration of Bush, Obama was worse, Trump was worse than Biden is not worse than Trump. It's just unbelievable how bad this is. And it's a directive that Biden has issued across the whole government to begin regulating AI. It has the idea is to basically because every one of these AI companies sells to the government in one way or another, the government can then make demands on them, demands vis-à-vis employment, what they call fairness, how data is presented. This relates directly to free speech. I hope somebody sues them around the free speech issues of the government directing AI on what kind of answers that AI gives acceptable and what kind of answers AI gives are not acceptable. That is a direct free speech issue. It would be it is a violation of free speech for the government for the government to do this. Let's see. So this is a wide ranging. So this is the Department of Energy and Homeland Security. So you know they're going to use national security to regulate all kinds of aspects of AI. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is going to allow them to start reviewing AI algorithms for mortgages and for consumer loans and for all the other stuff that finance companies might use AI for to increase productivity. Part of the targets of this AI regulations are to decrease its risk of massive unemployment. Again, a way to reduce the productivity enhancements of AI technology as the potential for the federal housing financing agency is going to have regulatory responsibility over AI. Again, algorithms relating to mortgages and who buys homes and all of this kind of stuff. It really is horrific. Again, it has the potential of clear violations of the First Amendment. Somebody will take this to court, I hope, but it also requires, for example, all companies that are developing advanced AI models to report to the government information on model training, parameter weights and safety testing that they insist on transparency about results of safety tests. All in the guise of we want to prevent AI from providing information to various terrorist groups building nuclear bombs or chemical or biological weapons. That's the excuse. But really what this is that the government basically taking over this industry regulating what can and can't be presented and how it's going to be presented. This is fascism 101. And of course, who's happy about this? Well, the people who are happy about this are the people that are going to afford to deal with it. That is big tech. Big tech can manage this. It can manage to deal with the regulators over the testing and over all this stuff. It's thought ups who are going to have a hard time. It's new technologies. It's innovation that is going to be stifled by this. So this is the protecting government incumbents hurt new prospects like most regulations and it is a generally a way to increase government's power and control over a burgeoning industry over something new that the government doesn't really understand. I mean, can you imagine people at the at the federal home law, you know, federal housing agency trying to regulate AI? What is their understanding of AI? What is the understanding of AI? Zero. What is the understanding of AI to consume a financial protection bureau? Zero. A bunch of idiots are going to try to regulate a bunch of geniuses on AI stuff. This is despicable. We'll talk about more about this as kind of these regulations become a reality and we get actual manifestations of them. But again, it's a way also to impose, you know, their speech coach, they hate speech coach, CRT, whatever, a DI onto AI results. Again, I think a clear violation of free speech. Let's test that in the courts. All right, let's turn to this super chat. Let me just say something about Ken, who is usual, is here being an idiot. I just repeat mainstream media talking points. I wonder how much of the mainstream media is talking about the need to vissuate Hamas and to wipe them out about the morality of wiping them out lands on Hamas. I totally I wonder how many, how much of the mainstream media is anyway, you know, I don't know why I have to explain, but I want to I want to put I want to defend CNN. Because the reality is that I mean, the reality is that Ken listens to Russian propaganda and thinks that that's objective media, right? He has and so many people listen to listen to Russian propaganda, you know, right wing conspiracy theories, right wing nutcases who make the news up, who invent stuff, and they think that that is real. That is real. And Ken says he's with me on Israel. So he happens to agree with me. So on Israel, I don't actually listen to mainstream media, but in Ukraine I do, which is so nutty, Ken, and so dishonest of you, and you know, you're a complete flake. And that is a good illustration of it. Now, let's take, for example, an example of something I just saw in CNN, I saw it on Twitter, kind of reporting CNN. So almost nobody is out there actually showing you the brutal, horrific, really ugly evidence of what happened on on October 7th in Israel of charred, the remains of charred babies. Real evidence of the burning alive, the burning of human beings and what has remained of them, the decapitations. Indeed, the internet is full of people denying that. And I'm surprised Ken is not denying it because he selectively has chosen to, you know, be pro-Israel on this one. But, but, you know, his many of his right wing friends and many of the right wing media outlets are denying that the Hamas actually did what clearly they did on, on October 7th. Anyway, CNN had this story from, from Tepa, Jack Tepa in Tel Aviv, where he literally showed video of this stuff. The pictures were blurred on purpose because, God, it would be brutal to show decapitated heads in full, high definition. But kudos to CNN for having the balls, the guts, in spite of the massive left leaning in, in spite of the fact that most of their watch, or many of their watches, are pro-Hamas, certainly all the young people that watch CNN, maybe that's MSNBC, but to show that and to stand by, to stand by the facts, to stand by the fact that Hamas did these horrific things, because there is a whole, there's a whole industry right now, a whole movement, I don't know what to call it, of evil bastards out there denying, which is a Hamas talking point, because Hamas is denying this, even though they're the ones who put up the videos, that any of this actually happened. Right. Ken says CNN will tell the truth when beneficial, just like Fox, just like every single media outlet that you listen to can. Yeah, Ken has discovered objective media, the truth, the people who present the truth, free of incentives, they're always objective. No, no, you only get that on the Iran book show. Objectivity is the only place on the news you get it on the Iran book show, you get the truth, at least as far as I can understand it, not to say I don't make mistakes, I do. But here you don't get biased news. All right, let's go to our questions. Remo, how to respond when someone is anti-Israel and mentions plan Dalit once and let me, I would just ask him to explain what plan Dalit is, right? So first, do they know what the hell they're talking about most of the time they don't? You know, this is a plan executed during the civil war in 1948, for the conquest of territory in mandatory Palestine in preparation of the establishment of a Jewish state. The plan was requested by Jewish agency, led at Bengal Young developed by the Haganah and it finalized on March 10, 1948. Absolutely. So plan Dalit was basically a plan to defend the Jews in Palestine, from an offensive by both Palestinian and other Arab, some seven other states to eradicate Jews from the land. It was a plan to defend and if necessary, to take land for defensive purposes so that Jews in Israel could live safely. There's nothing ominous about this. It was, you know, this is a, this is a, it was obvious to the Jews what would happen when the British left Palestine in May of 1948. This is just them preparing, which is what you'd expect people to do. The Haganah was basically the predecessor of the IDF. It was a Jewish militia group trying to defend Jews from Arabs from Palestinians and from the British once in a while when the British were going after them. And it was completely legitimate. Did it involve kicking Arabs out of some Arab settlements? Absolutely. Again, for defensive purposes, given that those Arabs were hostile and were engaged in the initiation of force against Israel. So plan Dalit is, there's a truth to it, because it is part of the defensive, but it is couched as some grand conspiracy theory of the Jews to kick out Palestinians. Not true. It is a defensive plan for the defense of the coming establishment of a state of Israel in the land that the British defined as Palestine. And it was only supposed to capture the land that the UN had granted the Jews plus the defensive perimeter, given that the Arabs had initiated the violence. And as a consequence, Israel ended up with more land. Good for Israel. For getting more land than the United Nations begrudgingly, begrudgingly gave them. So, you know, it's just, it sounds spooky. It sounds bad. Nothing wrong with plan Dalit self defense. Tajikin, I'm sorry the Norwegian government voted for ceasefire in UN. They are morally bankrupt. So no surprise there, though, our foreign minister is particularly bad. Hope you had a nice trip. Thank you. Trip was productive. Nice. Mostly I'm exhausted, though. But yeah, it's sad that Western countries voted for ceasefire, voted against Israel, voted against self defense, voted against Western civilization, voted for barbarism. It is, it is the West and Norway doesn't have a Muslim problem really. So it is the West committing suicide, even a country like Norway that is not dependent on the least an oil does not have a lot of Muslims in the country. And yet it is groveling before the Muslims, it is subjugating itself both with the Muslims. And it is letting the altruism, the intersectionality, if you will, dictate how they vote. Israel is strong, therefore you vote against it. Right. Let's see. Bradley. Thank you, Bradley. That's 60 pounds. Thank you. Pounds or euros? Maybe euros. Your lecture at Maastricht was excellent. Thank you, Bradley. The Q&A was intense. It's a pleasure to watch. I think there's a lot of curiosity and less polarity and cynicism in Europe than the Anglo countries for some reason, especially among young entrepreneurs. Yeah, I mean, there's definitely a solid group of people in Europe that interested in better ideas that are eager for better ideas that are hungry for them, that are not as cynical. Now, most of the culture is, but there's a group that is not. And yeah. Ian, Israel is obviously in the right in Gaza, how much conflict, but can you comment on what they're doing in the West Bank? Matt Inglesis has an article and today makes some accusations sound quite bad. Look, Israel is mixed in the West Bank, but mostly again, it is right in the sense that in West Bank, the Palestinians are still the enemy. They're still undermining they're still at every opportunity, eager to embrace violence and to undermine Israel. But Israel in the West Bank is unfortunately elements within Israeli government, a motivated boy by religious fanaticism, then they are by truly two issues of security. They're much more interested in, I don't know, building a, building a Holy Temple and having all the land, they'd be Jewish for the sake of being Jewish. So I too am suspicious of some of what's going on in the West Bank. But generally, as a principle, Israel has been too accommodating, too weak, too, you know, hands off when it comes to the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, the very fact that they're Hamas operatives, that they're terrorist cells, that there's Islamic jihad, all operating in the West Bank and that the Palestinian Authority does not and cannot do anything about it. And Israel should be doing something about it and it hasn't in the past. And now it's finally doing something. So I'd say this, everything that Israel has done in the West Bank since October 7th is probably justified. And probably too weak and too little. What they were doing before that on the West Bank is much more questionable. In a sense, I think they were poking and they were creating distractions. And as I said in a past show, part of those distractions, distractions meant that some of the forces that should have been on the Gaza border to defend the Israeli towns on the other side of the Gaza border were not there. They were in the West Bank unnecessarily in my view. Or at least that's what it looks like. We still don't have all the facts. But yes, this government, the Netanyahu government is a horrible government. It's a government run by religious fanatics. And I don't trust them. I don't trust anything they do. You know, truly, these are religious fanatics. And while sometimes what they say is true, and sometimes what they say sounds more consistent with my view about the Middle East than many others, their motivation is 100% religious and irrational. And as a consequence of that, you can't trust anything they say or do. I don't trust religious people generally. All right, let's see, we're about $58 short of a goal. Let's not make our first show back. Let's not allow it. First show back in here. We've got 160 people watching live with 60 short. So you do the math wouldn't take a lot of stickers, five, 10, $1, $2 stickers to get us to the target. So please, particularly those of you who maybe have not done a super chat in the past, or haven't done one in a long time, or are not regulars on the show, it would be great if you show value for value, you're listening to show, I take it you take some value in it, show that value by by doing a super chat or doing a stick up if you don't want to ask a question, just doing a sticker to represent that instead. 167. Also, don't forget to like the show before you leave Robert. Thank you stickers like Robert and I saw West did a $20 sticker before. So won't take much of these stickers even at $2 to get us to where we need to be. So please consider doing that, particularly again, for those of you who don't usually contribute to the show, and would like me to continue doing it. All right. Also, you can contribute on a monthly basis on Patreon on subscribe star. Just look your own book show. Or on my website, your own book show that comes last support. Okay, Jason says, did firms anticipate rate hikes? Heed your warning rates are too low, too long, prepared in advance for high rates when this day would come, stayed agile to avoid losses, thus mitigating your session. Well, I don't think they get this they heated. I don't know that he did my warning. I doubt that. But yeah, a lot of firms I think did prepare. I think they were ready. I think generally, as I've said before, the US economy is flexible, is responsive. We still have freedoms in some realms. And therefore, can we stand a bad government policy and grow in spite of it? And I think that's really what we have seen here. So but some firms did see this coming. Others did not a lot of banks, for example, did not and got crushed by the high rates. But other companies did. And look, a lot of companies will be sitting on cash for a long time, like Apple and Google and a lot of tech companies had a lot of cash. And and that has helped through this. It helped them and and I think helped the economy more broadly as they've used that cash to invest and to buy the companies and buy do stock buybacks returning capital to investors and things like that. But yeah, I mean, companies were obviously better prepared than I expected them to be. I thought there'd be a lot more zombie companies that haven't been I think the one thing that companies did that I did not appreciate is I think a lot of companies in the in the in the era of high, very, very low interest rates, funded their debt with long term debt with long term. So they haven't had to reprice it in this higher interest rate environment. They will at some point, but they funded it with a lot more long debt, long term debt than I expected. Not true of government but certainly true of it appears true of firms. Justin asked, will you debate Scott Horton? No, of course not. I mean, why would anybody expect me to debate somebody who I regard as fundamentally dishonest, an anarchist and look, you can't debate an anarchist and farm policy. The whole context is, there should be no state. You can't talk about a state. You can't talk about self defense in the context of a state, because there is no state, or there is is is is individuals and states don't have any function and indeed anything that the state does is evil. So how can a state act in self defense? So they wipe out the concept of self defense when it comes to national self defense. So there is no farm policy, nothing a state does from their perspective is good. Of course, they're not consistent. So they like restrictions on immigration, they like building walls, because the state that you know, the state does that they're okay with that, at least in America. So they're completely inconsistent. But here's a guy also that is trying to whitewash what Hamas did on October 7. Did you see that on a temple? This is a guy who has rewritten history, both the Iranian history and, and and the history of the Israeli Palestinian conflict. No, I, you know, I'm not gonna, you can't debate somebody whose whole premise, you know, eliminates any basis for the debate. You're debating farm policy when he doesn't believe there should be farm policy. And you can't debate people who just lie through their teeth. And then who some people out there confuse with you. I want to have nothing zero zilch to do with Scott Horton, nothing, nothing with him, nothing with a Mises caucus caucus of the libertarian party, nothing with the with that wing of the anarcho capitalist whatever. I find that whole part of the libertarian movement despicable, you know, horrible, you know, and not worthy of debating not worthy of other than condemnation as I'm doing now not worthy of discussion. So yeah, no, absolutely, I will not debate Scott Horton. And it's not because I'm afraid of him. God, I'm not afraid of anybody. Bring him on. So anyway, let's see Christian, thank you for the $50 that is fantastic. Really, really appreciate that we've got a first time super chatter, Rajiv, I assume from India, it's rupees. Thank you, Rajiv really appreciate that. Sylvanas, thank you for the $20. That's, thank you. And then we got another first timer. Thank you. E. Jones, thank you, E. Jones for the for the support really, really appreciate that. So we blew through the blew through the target. Thank you guys. Okay, Doron Regev has a question for $20. How can we better communicate the situation in Israel to liberals who simply see the conflict as a press and a press? Israel being the oppressor in their views, of course, I think you have to give them the facts about both the history and the present. You have to give the context of Israel as a civilized thriving country, and what the Palestinians have been, including what autonomy, really, nationality for Gaza strippers led to. You have to show them videos of the Hamas committing themselves to murdering Israel and destroying Israel and murdering as many Jews as they can. And then let the cards go, you know, far away they may. I mean, you're not going to convince many of them. And that's a reality. There's just nothing to do with them. They believe that oppression makes you a good guy. They take Christianity, you know, the Christian belief of the Michelin-Hebrew, the earth and the virtue of suffering and the virtue of sacrifice and the virtue of, you know, being the victim. To the nth degree, they take intersectionality and modern, you know, nonsensical, you know, identitarian politics that says that the more victimized you are, the more pressed you are, the more virtuous you are, there's no way to convince somebody like that of anything. Because their explanation is always going to be, well, you're strong. And by strong, by definition, evil and bad. So you have to give the facts, and then let them do with them as they will, and just accept the fact that there are many, many people out there in the world that you will not convince. You will not convince. Philosophy at W, would today's culture and its politicians ask their allies during World War II to fight Nazis without killing any Germans. Yes. There's absolutely no question. There's no reason to think that there's something unique. Now, there is specifically something unique about Jews, right? So I do think the world is anti-Jews. There is a strong anti-Semitism in the world out there. And it's just part of the culture. It's in some way embedded in the culture. So that anything with the Jews is strong is going to be, the constraints on them are going to be bigger. They're going to be harsher. They're going to be more dramatic and more significant. Whereas the allies weren't representing the Jews, so they would have a free hand. But I do think today we would try to impose just war theory. Again, I wrote an essay called Just War Theory vs. America. You can find it online. Please search for it. Go read it. I explained a lot of the stuff there. And I think there would be an attempt today to embrace Just War Theory in our fight against the Nazis, which would mean try not to kill any Germans, try not to kill any Japanese, make the war as long as it needs to be in order to not to hurt the civilians of the enemy country. Which is in my view, evil. Just War Theory evil. Andrew, the dem hypothesis is alive and well emerging from the chaos of the Republicans as a leader who is integrated, effective, would be theocrat. Absolutely. I mean, the latest house leader is an example of them. It's an example of the horrors of what is possible in this country still. And now it's a question of who they elect as president. I mean, it could be somebody like Trump who is not a theocrat, but will embrace theocracy. We embrace the theocrats in the Republican party. Indeed, and the theocrats will be the ones electing him. They will be the ones that put him into the White House. And without House Speaker like this, a much more principled, theocrat and somebody who has no principles like Donald Trump, that is a really, really, really dangerous combination. But the real risk is what comes later. What comes later? What is the next step? Where is the theocratic president? Josh Hawley, maybe. Hard to tell. Maybe Hawley, maybe JD Vance. Dim is playing out, playing out, as Leonard said. JJ Degrees says, have you read the Herman Wolk's historical novels and the formation of Israel, the hope and the glory, starting them soon as they're highly esteemed? I have not. I have not. I highly recommend Leon Lewis's books on that period of time. I think Leon Lewis, Exodus, the Hodge, there were a few of them, are truly, truly excellent. Robert reminds me that Ilan's and Nicos' video, Did Israel Steal Palestinian Land, is sitting in 1.228 million views, million views in less than a week. Now that should be celebrated. That is the most that any video the UNRAN Institute has put out that's not direct the UNRAN talking. It is the most viewed videos any of us objectivists have ever put out. And that's in less than a week. It is fantastic. Good for Nicos and Ilan and good for whatever the algorithm did. However, the algorithm worked and functioned to make that possible is amazing. Good for them. Yep. Let's see. Andrew says, Enjoy your talk on happiness. A societal problem is happiness doesn't have philosophy behind it. It's not taken as seriously as it is. Its power is diluted. Thoughts on how a rational culture would regard happiness. Well, everything, that would be everything, right? Happiness would be the ultimate moral goal, the moral purpose. Happiness would be discussed openly. It would be the focus of all psychotherapy. It would be the focus of self-help. It would be the focus of, you know, not happiness as something to aim at, but happiness as the result of the outcome of productive work. Happiness as the outcome of a goal setting of achieving your goals, of sustaining your goals. I mean, happiness would have a very, very central key place in education. Not as a, oh yeah, you need to be happy now. No. But as if you understand happiness as the achievement of one's goals, you need to define your goals. You need to work on it. You need to think about it. And you need to strive towards achieving your goals. That is what, of values. That is what I meant. That's what morality is about. And make sure those values are rational, life-enhancing values, and on and on and on. A whole educational system would be so much more around that. Rajiv says, In this, in this immensely depressive world, you and I are like a rock of jirgu balta to me, only beacon of light. Thank you, thank you, Rajiv. I really appreciate that. I wish more people thought that way. Frank says, she spoke about the NHS. Did you recall the scene in the witness for the prosecution with a woman who says she was waiting six months for a hearing aid? No, I didn't remember that. I still don't remember that. I should have. That would have been cool. Michael, the failure of the West to defend itself is the society lack of self-esteem. We are clearly capable, but some deem ourselves unworthy. Bush to Biden, thanks for standing up for reason of freedom. Absolutely. This is all, this is a large extent an issue of self-esteem. And the West has none. I said this after 9-11. Lenny Peacock talked about this significantly after 9-11 in his talk, America versus Americans. Americans versus America, I can't remember how it goes. You look that up, you can watch it online. But yeah, an important important talk about just that. The fact that the West will not defend itself. Anonymous user says, watching the violence online against Jews and its relatives is horrifying. I hope you're safe and in caution. Be careful in public. I try to be so far haven't encountered the violence, but you just never know where it's going to come from. Rafael says, hi, Iran. Could I try to influence universities' biggest donors to bring about a change in the education system? Have you considered that? We have over the years, the donors don't seem very responsive. They seem to cower before the university professors, and they don't use their influence. But maybe this is walking them up. Several donors, who I know, big donors to places like the University of Pennsylvania are attracting their money, taking it out. Maybe this is the turning point. I do hope that everybody look at an op-ed that Ankar Ghaté and Ilan Juno published in the Orange County Register about exactly this issue. Higher education and donors. It's an excellent op-ed. I encourage you to find it online and read it. All right, Michael. Those who prevent history from being taught intend to repeat it. Well, they will repeat it whether they intend to do it or not. Jean says on Trigger Nometry, Sam Harris said World War II couldn't have been one without bombing German civilians. I agree with Sam Harris. It certainly couldn't have been one as fast as it was one, couldn't have been one as effectively as it was, and it couldn't have been one as decisively as it was, in the sense of changing German minds the way it was. I'm curious when this was. I'd like to watch that episode. Is that a recent show? But look, Sam Harris is very, very good on a lot of issues. And I'd like to see more of Sam Harris talking right now about what's going on because he brings a voice of rationality and anti-Islam, which is lacking right now from the debate. Almost nobody mentions Hamash's Islamic roots. Michael says, one thing Objectivism teaches you is not to get lost in detail, to get a big picture view. Yes, to integrate, to see commonality, to see the principles behind what's going on. Michael also says, how do you know Yoni Netanyahu read Atlas Shrugging and gave it to Bibi? Good question. I don't remember how I know that, but I know it one source. I think there's several sources, but one source I know it from is I've actually had dinner with a third brother, a third Netanyahu brother, Bibi and Yoni's brother. I've had a couple of times I've met him. I had dinner with him. I know his son, his son often videotapes my talks in Israel, so he's affiliated with kind of the circle, but I've met the brother a number of times and he told us. They've all, all the brothers, all the brothers have read Atlas Shrugging, so he is a playwright. He's the one who has never got involved in at least politics, but he's a good guy, very friendly, and I like him. I do not hate Hans Sam Harris. I dramatically significantly disagree with him about free will more than anything else. David Batson says great comments on happiness. Do you have a link to the talk? The questioner was referring to no, and I can't, did I put up a talk on happiness? I know there's more coming from my trip. I did, I did talk about how to be a hero of your life. I think you guys will really enjoy that one. You know, I'm looking for the link right now, but basically if you go, if you go there and put, which is what I'm doing on YouTube, just putting your own book, happiness, and where is the talk? Yeah, happiness from Tbilisi Georgia lecture. I don't even remember giving this lecture, but yeah, it was the small, relatively small group. It was the first day there. Here it is. I'm putting it on the chat. There's the link, David. So yeah, feel free to share it and get the word out there to people that it exists. Schausbert says, I think you read that super chat about Sam Harris wrong. I did. Let me go back and find it. Aren't you gonna already Sam Harris said World War II could have been won without bombing German civilians? All right, I disagree with Sam Harris now, dramatically. All right, that is too bad. I thought he would be more thoughtful than that. All right, I'm disappointed. I like Sam Harris. That is disappointing. Thank you, Schausbert, for pointing that out. I read it wrong. Sam Harris said you still could have won without it. Therefore, he was supporting not having done it. All right, Tumas, Vinko, thank you for the 23 euros. And friend Harper, thank you for the sticker. We really appreciate it, guys. And this will be the last question from Michael. Why do people say Israel has a right to defend itself? Isn't that self-evident? As though it's on the fence where the Jews should be allowed. Well, no, they should be allowed to prevent themselves from dying. I think you're right. There's some of that, but some of it is also, it's just the point that this is self-defense. It's to emphasize that there is something about self-defense that it is self-defense. And so on. Yeah, let me... All right, so that's it. Ken, I dislike you because I don't think you're being honest. That's why I dislike you, Ken. So it's not because we disagree. I can disagree with people, but that you come on and the way you express yourself and the sources from which you think you get the news and the way you talk about me suggest both deep disrespect and dishonesty on your behalf. And that's why I don't like you. All right, thank you guys. Really, really appreciate it. And I will see you tonight. Eight o'clock, I'm talking to Scott McDonald on China. It should be really fascinating. I'm looking forward to it. Talk about China's strategy, future, philosophy, philosophy of the leadership, where they come from, how they approach things, where we're heading with China relations, what would happen in a war, what's the probability of the war, and so on. Thanks, guys. I will see you all tonight. Yeah, join me. Don't forget. Bye.