 So radical fundamental principles of freedom, rational self interest and individual rights. This is the Iran book show. Right everybody, welcome to your own book show this Thursday. Dr bees me. All right. But anyway, today we've got an exciting show I think for everybody let me just make sure that the stuff works. Okay. No, it's still gonna be once and continue. Every once in a while. Everything has to be we whatever. All right, there we go. All right, we've got Greg with us today. And I'm excited. I know many of you are too and have been anticipating asking questions so we're going to dedicate most of the show today to answering your questions so feel free to come up with with questions as I said, anything that I've said during a show. Ask a philosopher that well this is your opportunity to ask a philosopher. So we're going to start by covering a bunch of different topics and then, and then cover you so I'll introduce Greg quickly but I think you all know Greg but he's a senior scholar philosophy at the Salem Center for policy at the McCombs School of Business at UT Austin. He holds a Bingham fellowship for the study of objectivism at the center and is the director of the centers program for objectivity and thought action and enterprise. To be on my favorite podcast. Oh, thank you. Thank you that is. That is high praise so I appreciate that. Let's see so Greg actually does listen to podcast. I'm, and I'm, I'm honored by that by that fact so it's it's really nice. So let's see. You know I attended. When was it. I can't even tell a month or two, two ago two months ago something like that. I attended a seminar at the center at the Salem Center on on racism. So you do these workshops periodically tells a little bit about the format that thinking about behind it, you know what the purposes, and then we can dive into the actual topics. We experiment with the format from time to time but the idea is to get people together to talk through a topic and there are several different types that we do. One can can everybody hear what's going on downstairs my son's trying to get up so it's not picking up on the mic that's fine. One format is what I call kind of like a pow wow, kind of conference that's not really a good term for it but where people are relatively aligned in the premises that they're coming to the issue from usually it's objectivist or objective is sympathetic people and we're just trying to think through an issue get our, our, you know, process new information on it or think it through. And the workshop on racism was like that I have another workshop on what I'm calling work to be done in ethics coming up in a couple of weeks and most of the ones I've done have been like that others of the workshops are ones where I just try to get together a broad range of people usually including some objectivist. Besides myself working on a topic of mutual interest, and those tend to have a format more where there are works in progress being discussed or something like that. And the conference say it was last academic year on on work and well being the the role of, you know, career in in one's well being there's a whole literature on well being and philosophy which I think is interesting and one of the more interesting things going on and it doesn't talk that much about career and work and so that the idea was to bring those those topics together and we have people who are known for their writing on well being there. There's a range of ideological perspectives on that one, the one on racism that you're on your at was the occasion was the 60th anniversary of Rand's essay on racism which was written in 1963. And, you know, it's soon to be the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, which was one of the things she writes about in that in that essay. I have a sense there's just a lot to say to kind of, there's a lot of thinking that needs to be done about what's happened in the last 60 years, what to make of the claims ran made in hindsight and what things were she predicting that actually occurred how did it, it fit with it. And so we I just got some of what I think are the smartest people and objectives and together on that and people who have in one way or another special interest or knowledge about this topic. And then just some students I was working with two or people who were around. And we were just kind of talking the issues through. And I'm hoping that that will put us all in a better position to comment on this issue in particularly next year and I expect there's just going to be a lot of occasions for this I hope we'll do something about it and so on. So let me ask you so so my guess is that a lot of people listening are thinking, I mean racism. What's there to talk about isn't this isn't this pretty clear issue. And I ran wrote the essay and, you know, and what are the kind of the subtle or the complicated or the things we really need to talk through and think that are relevant right now relevant today that we have to have a position on that's not that's not obvious. So one thing is part of what really impressed me about I ran just I was writing the companion time ran and and or editing the companion but but co writing the chapter on on her commentary on the events of her time is that she didn't have opinions on abstract issues, racism is bad communism is bad or whatever she had a story of what was going on in the world what issues were important, what trends were there what things were coming to the for what was the effect of this election in in in knocking this issue out of the headlines and this other one and she had a real kind of take on the history of her time and that was motivating her to choose the issues that she chose to talk about to emphasize some and de emphasize other and to have the take she had the hope for any given election, when the election didn't matter and when it did and what other things matter, and understanding the role of race and racism in American politics over the past 60 years and before is I think something really important I think we could think rethink the role it was playing in politics in her time better with some hindsight we saw how some of these movements develop, but also I think she made a lot of some predictions about what we should expect to happen in that essay that I think are not enough heated. So my sense growing up was that people tend to regard racism as the left issue. And they treat it as whatever time you know you're talking in they treated as it was a real problem in the past it's fixed now and and all the things people want to do about it now are bad, and they're bad because there's not a problem anymore there's not a problem been fixed or mostly fixed. And that that kind of feeling about it was the way people acted about it in the 80s that I was married with in the 90s and the 2000s and now and I just don't think that's a plausible position and it's the position that I think is in keeping with what she says in that article. So she thinks that as you make your laws more race conscious. And in particular, as you develop towards a more more and more of a welfare state, what you should expect to see is increasing racial animosities, and that it should be particularly hard on the groups who are the minorities who are the victims of historic prejudices. And I've come to think that that's true, not everything that the people who are on about racism these days claim is real is real and their solutions to it are usually things that are going to make the problem worse. But if one has the kind of sense, everything got fixed sometime in 1964 1972. Well, I don't think that's realistic and I think if you think about what the fixes were supposed to be laws that force people to integrate in their private laws that really pervert employment contracts and education and so forth. You wouldn't expect those to solve the problem. But more over there were things in the culture that were really good and pushing in an anti racist direction such that people were set up with Jim Crow weren't going to tolerate it anymore. And so I think there's a, it's not like everything went wrong. A lot was right about the civil rights movement as well as some things that were wrong with the laws that came out of it, and with the direction it took so I think there's a kind of complicated historical movement on where there's a movement that has a lot of good in it and some significant bad and that gets worse over time and understanding it to facts on the country and the effects of the laws that it's bought. And also there's something this is going beyond Rand's piece but there's a question as to why the movement of the 1960s and early 1960s was framed in terms of civil rights which I think is a good and positive framing, and a lot of what they were advocating for was good and a lot of what had been advocated for in terms of racial justice earlier than that or later in that. And so there are questions about why that was happening and, and, you know, how to understand this development. Yeah, and, you know, clearly, we're living in a period in which racial issues have become, you know, more of an issue more of a problem and and they're really all around us, obviously BLM and 2020 and everything around that. And, you know, understanding where that comes from critical race theory understanding where that comes from what the context for that is. And how polarized both political sides are around racial issues. How little of what suggested a solutions to them are solutions. I think you see this in so many issues we become factionalized tribalized and things that proceed to being pro or anti some group as opposed to pro or anti some principle, and it ends up, you know, harming everyone of course. Yeah, good. There are certain kinds of laws and institutions so that when they're in a society are going to tend to magnify the effects of prejudices people have that they're not they're not their explicit view but they're their prejudices that they're you know maybe And that will tend to preserve status for people who are politically connected and knowledgeable about how to use the political system and preserve lack of access to to opportunities from people who don't. What kinds of things are like that. Well, the biggest is a public education system where you take a major factor of the economy and a major factor in people's lives, and something that's to do with a very personal value that people cherish my kids and how they're going to raise and you And so you make it that there's this system that's doling out education to everybody. At a collective, you know, and there's collective decision making about it, you can't come in and choose where you're going to go unless you know how to manipulate and use the system, and whatever prejudices and fears and worries and concerns people have are going to, they're going to get together there. And what's going to happen is that people who are good at getting politically connected are going to be able to get something that's semi good for their kids and people who aren't are not going to be able to. Likewise when you have laws that are non objective and unenforceable, unenforceable at scale like a war on drugs. What's going to happen is it's going to get enforced more on the people who are going to make less of a stink about it getting enforced on them. They have less access to high priced lawyers. So there are kinds of predictable things in the system. And then when you have the process of hiring an association, such that it's made litigious, litigious around hiring and firing of people of protected groups, what you're going to get is a lot of box checking around that, so that everybody is trying to be diverse in a politically correct socially acceptable way, and nobody is free to do the kind of real entrepreneurial work that would be involved in having the most productive workforce you could have that integrates categories of people that weren't well integrated into it in creative dynamic ways. And so I think you see the lot of features of our economy that you would expect to cause kind of stagnation and resentment on issues where there had been a lot of prejudice. And I think that continues to this is not the main story or the whole story of the 20th century, or 21st century but it's one of the factors that are there and I think, rather than reacting to claims of persistent or institutional racism. I'm saying there's no there there. There's nothing that these are maybe misconceptualizations of it's worth thinking about what's actually going on here which of the unjust policies, we're already familiar with might be involved in this and how do these things play out. So that's one of the things I've been thinking about under the heading of racism. So it all comes out of kind of the, the, the iron man's analysis of a mixed economy and the politics pool. And once you have a mixed economy. It's just a question of which tribe you associate with to get your leverage and one of the tribes that people associate with this is a ratio tribes or color skin tribes, because they viewed that way and because it gives them a big gives them leverage. And it's really could really see you're talking about this in her article nations unity, which I think is one of her, not much, not enough red pieces on politics. Yeah, and it's interesting because you don't think of my name is being concerned about a nation's unity. Right. And she has this perspective and unity that is quite interesting and quite, and really important, particularly today when we're seeing such a disunited United States. You can see the same thing too in the in the article on racism where she talks about groups that have come to acting as their own destroyers and how businessmen are often by advocating types of policies that, you know, end up getting them persecuted more. And she thinks the leaders of the civil rights movement are, you know, giving the business leaders to run for their money on that front. In 1963 when she's writing this, this is Martin Luther King and so forth. This isn't, you know, Marcus Garvey or, you know, or later on. Yeah, I mean really speaking these are good guys. Yeah, as compared to anything we have today these are good people. But I think there's she's making some points that I think that there's a lot right about and a lot you could see a lot about it in history. So I found I found the workshop, really valuable. Partially because a lot of history came out that I wasn't familiar with and I got to meet Isaiah Slade, who I later interviewed on the show which I thought was was terrific and he, he was. Yeah, I just added a lot it's I really enjoyed getting to know him he's such a bright guy and it's really gotten going on these topics and seeing deep into them. Yeah, and a real future intellectual who's going to have a voice out there I think so I think that's that's important and having somebody like that at the workshop is incredibly valuable because his knowledge of objective is still young he's still new to journalism in many regards, having him they exposed to everybody is incredibly it goes both ways we benefited from him and I'm sure he benefited a lot from exposure to some of the objectives. He ended up actually in part due to some, there were some weather problems and Austin the following days, he ended up staying out here for the better part of a week after that so we got a lot more time interacting. But there are a number of really bright young people who I think are coming to philosophical and political issues in a way that's deeply influenced by objectivism, and apart from all of the political tribes and and I think I this is doing that he's not the only one Mohammed was also at that conference. And, you know, I've been talking a lot about this kind of stuff. So, you said you have some you have a workshop coming up on an ethics and yeah, so this is. So tell us a little bit about what the goal is and, and where you see kind of the work on ethics going from here. The next workshop from doing is going to be next, not this coming weekend but the weekend after and it's on work to be done in and it's mostly academics with a background in objectivism including students but also some people who are do more popular writing. And we're getting together to read some of the, you know, some sets of articles in contemporary ethics some by objectivists, most not, and get a kind of read on some of the literatures that are out there and each topic we're covering within the workshop I'm dividing it into two sessions. And the first one is just like, can we get to the bottom of this issue and figure out what we think is right about it. What's the truth here. And the second one, and this is why I'm calling it work to be done in ethics is okay, what kind of writing projects might there be here. Primarily I'm thinking academic kind of writing just because of the group of people but also popular writing. One of the things I'm trying to reinforce somewhat for myself but for everyone else there too, is that there are there's two separate bits of thinking you need to do, like, what's true. And then now okay what can I write on this, who's the audience I would be writing for what are their premises already what you know they're not coming at it from the same perspective I am. And there are a few young grad students who are interested in ethics who are going to be part of this but also, you know, some of the philosophers you guys are familiar with. We'll be there and we're just going to be sort of strategizing what areas are worth researching more what projects might there be for writing. And this is meant to kind of inspire work going forward. And here, do you mean, you know, theory in terms of some of the expanding on on what Rand has already written on ethics in terms of theoretical stuff or application application to most of what we're doing at this workshop is. Theory stuff in meta ethics what is human well being like, what is the role of reason and like there's some interesting work being done on that. And the now and the question is how can we engage with it how can we, you know, get some tracks with that work, but there are also to to people doing more applied work in ethics one of them with their concentration. One of them is bioethics and medical ethics. They're just a few people who have found niches doing early in their careers doing work on that. And the other is business ethics and as it happens just who was available for this conference. Most of the distance ethics people couldn't get here and the medical ethics people could. So we're doing a period on issues in medical ethics and bioethics. We're going to have a follow up by zoom or something on the business stuff. Well, yeah, I mean, the bioethics is fascinating. I mean, I was, I mentioned today the article today on the show the article I know if you've heard the news show this morning about the the end of my skin cell and turning it into a, I mean, it's fascinating stuff and gene editing. I mean, there's so much that is going to happen that is going to push the boundaries of how we think about human beings about reproduction about design of babies. I remember the next 20 30 years. Yeah, I remember when the mouse stem cell study first came out because my wife and I were trying to get pregnant and trying by artificial means and the problem was getting enough eggs like yeah, we could just do this but of course it's it's it's far off. And now the idea that they could do it, you know, man male or female and make eggs. Yeah, I think so and but also raises ethical issues so I think it's a, it's an exciting time to be in that field as some of these boundaries are being being pushed in terms of, in terms of what and how how to pursue this research. So one's just connected to what we're doing at the conference. One thing that I don't really understand too well is in Europe, how some of the doctoral programs and postdocs work is that people kind of in America you you get accepted to a program and you find someone who will agree to be your dissertation supervisor and you write a dissertation, but some of what happens in Europe is you're accepted into a particular program to work on a particular project often that's not across disciplinary. And there are a couple of people who've been through the OAC who have are in these kind of programs and their doctoral research is associated with some ongoing multi disciplinary project to do with bioethics and research on environmental contaminants and to what what effect they might have on health and what ethical issues that raises, or there are a couple of different things that it's not the person's own project they started in but there are real issues in the project and they're thinking about how do I, you know, find work to do how do I do things effective within these contexts and there are a couple of people who found opportunities like this so I think it's, it's worth our getting our heads together to think about what does it look like to apply the objective aspects in these kinds of situations. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so we got a few questions I think here on on the on the racism issue so windows will just jump into those. And we can talk about later conferences later. Yeah, we can talk we can we can go in and out of the questions. Adam has a question. Thank you, Adam. That's very generous of you. Did did ran discuss a delineate between racism, hating someone based on race versus prejudice that is coming across a menacing looking person. You know, being a grandmother in a dark alley. Does the view, does, does she view pre judgment versus racism of an individual based on a class such as age race as rational. So my knowledge talk about that in the article on racism she she has a very wide conception of racism. So it's a it's, it's basically ascribing more moral characteristics to people based on their lineage. It's not even, you know, black, white or or as large as what you might call a race the Japanese the English the whatever, if you think he's from a good family and therefore his genes are such that he's probably a man sure whatever. You know, that's, that's the same, the same thing in fact called family values a kind of mini racism. And so one of the things we talked about is, you know, okay, granted that there's just broad kind of racism of biological determinism. What are the other concepts that we, you know, my call racism and how do they relate. But she does if you're talking about snap judgments you might make up somebody based on their appearance. She certainly does talk about that I mean she thinks that's what an emotion, right. It's a snap assessment you have of something based upon, you know, automatically calculated by your subconscious based upon. What appears to you. And you could have them for people and the various things about them can trigger you and people I don't think those emotions is such are either rational or irrational. But you have to think about how to act on them can you trust them. You can't regard them as a source of knowledge, you might have to act on your emotions in a, you know, if you have a split second decision to make that's what they're there for but you need to recognize that they're not accurate and I think now this isn't something ran says herself but if you're in a situation, you're in a career for example, where you're finding that you often have to act on snap judgments you're you know, someone who runs into burning buildings and as the rescue people are our police officer, or whatever it might be then you might really want to think about what you can do to, you know, tune these kind of snap judgments to be more accurate, and I think it's a psychological question what you know what works and what doesn't and, you know, etc. I think part of what he's asking is so if you're, if you're in a dark alley, and you're in a city where, you know, disproportionately crime is committed by, you know, black people let's say or so members of particular ethnicity or race or somebody of that ethnicity approaches you is it irrational to take into account that ethnic background or that color skin in deciding whether to cross the street or to run away or to do whatever, whether that's the emotion or whether rationally even if you're doing it slow down. I mean, if we're talking about you have time to make a rational assessment of it, or you have time to think it through. You always have so much other information besides the color of their skin and their physiognomy. How are they walking are they moving towards you quickly or slowly. How are they dressed what else is going on what are they looking right at you were looking away. It's a step that people are over influenced by racial stereotypes and these things but of course you should take into account all the information you have I just wonder that people sometimes think that's what they're doing and it's not. Yeah, and they, they, they come to snap decisions or they or they basically decisions on emotions they're not actually using reason in making those coming to the conclusions. Adam, we got another Adam. The other says immigration laws have been historically into wine with racism, especially anti Asian racism. Why obstacles to immigration so seldom integrated into the discussion of racism. I think that's a really good point to good point on a few levels. So first of all, we have the Chinese Exclusion Act, which was awful. And you've had other, you know, the whole history of debates over immigration have had to do with with with race. But also there's another way in which it affects it if you have laws on the books that say that you can't racially discriminate. Right. Then I think that that is a reason for people to be less open to immigration. But suppose you think for example that people coming over from a certain Muslim country are likely to bring their values or people from South of whatever it is there's some place where you think their culture is bad the people who are coming over from this place are going to bring their culture and etc it's it's it's it's somehow going to be bad. Whether you're right or wrong on that. Right, but suppose you have that kind of concern. Well, it's a lot different if you don't have to deal with them don't don't hire these kind of people if you think that they're, you know, they can't keep them out of the country with some of the people who want to deal with them will deal with them. And they'll assimilate or they won't but it's not your problem. Right. But if you're forced to be blind to these kinds of things considerations that you yourself whether correctly or inconsistently think are relevant to hiring once the people are in the country. And I think, you know, there's a reason to worry that people are being shoved down your throat, the less you have freedom of the association the more plausibility there is to resentment of people being in a field you're feeling like they're I think these issues are really connected. And I think most of the opposition, or much of the opposition to immigration does come from racial prejudice that I think are unjustified and wrong. And that's, I think this dynamic plays into it. Right. So, so let's talk about some of the other workshops that are coming up. There's the ethics one that's in a couple of weeks and then what follows that. So we have to that we're doing in June that you're coming out for a few other people are on, I usually don't talk about these publicly but anyway we are. One is on philosophy of economics and the occasion for that is there are a couple of people in graduate programs and economics are going into economics and believe we're going to get Rob tar out for that last I spoke to him he was going to come. And we're going to talk about kind of issues at the intersection of philosophy and economics that are of particular interest to objectivist or people with a background in objectivism, particularly given the kinds of economics that they're they're likely to study, they're going to study them. And then the other one that's connected to that only in that there's a lot of common interest is we want to get some people together to think about the role of probability mathematics statistics in good reasoning and ways to go right along with that there's a lot of emphasis on Bayesian ism in the kind of so called rationalist community coming out of Silicon Valley and elsewhere a lot of these people are very influenced by called proper and, and others. Of course, the David do it is a big influence on on them as a kind of transmission belt from Papa for people who've read his book there's been some, some books that I think have a lot right about them like there's a book the scout mindset by I forget her name on on thinking rationally rather than defensively. But there's a lot of ways that they're thinking about using probability that I find kind of dubious and others that seem like there's something right about them but also some things wrong about them and so I know you've had the same observation and there's having and probabilities been discussed by objectivist epistemologists here and there over the years but not. I think really gone to an up depth about. And so this is a gathering of people who either know epistemology well, and or the use of stats well for one reason or another to do with what field they're in, and in some cases both and we're going to try to think that issue through that's another one. I'm looking forward to both of those I mean, the stat one also kind of rose to my attention because I read Pinkers book. on rationality and really for Steven Pinker rationality thinking generally comprises of basically doing probabilities or big chunk of what he considers thinking is getting the probabilities right. And I know a lot of people who think that way, and almost all of them are people in the financial world where you do a lot of probabilities and who are good poker players. Because poker is a probability game it's it's it's about knowing the probabilities of every hand and that intersection about what it what what it what what constitutes what it what epistemological status this probability have I think is very interesting. And in some cases some of what people are suggesting or talking about around probability. In case where I don't think it's literally correct. strikes me as a kind of two concrete version of something that is correct more abstractly like when you're doing a certain kind of thing you want to track probabilities literally and think about, well how often did my predictions come out. All the things I thought were 30% likely did you do a third of them come out right or or not and then how am I going to adjust this is the kind of thing. She's got Alexander talking a lot about that kind of thinking seems seems to be just right for certain kinds of things. If you're making predictions, for example, for other kinds of thinking I think it's not plausible, but there is something that you need to be doing that that is because, you know, that's the version of it in some fields what's the version of another what's the abstraction. What does it look like to be checking integrating your work over time, error checking, and, and, and refining your methods of knowing and judging. I think I think there's, there's a lot, there's a lot of work to be done in that area that objectives haven't yet done yet. And then some relationship to it but there's still a lot of work to be done and then in places where there's literal stats, you know that you need to use not just you put a number on your hunches, which I think is too much of what goes on in the rationality but where you're actually doing regressions and things, you know what's good and bad use of statistics and you've you've had some shows on this that have been, have been really good. Yeah, I mean, I'm, I think I'm fairly good at catching some of the bad uses of statistics but, but more on a practical level. But again, there's there's a lot of thinking and there's a lot of, you know, they have been there has been a lot of work done by non objectivist about how to lie with statistics and how statistics can be distorted and and a lot of that work is is good work and it's, it's true Apollo Zeus says any Duke yes any, any, I know any Duke any Duke is she she won the world championship poker couple of times she's the most famous female poker player. And I have, I have a book here signed, she's, she's a friend so she's a character, she would be interesting to talk to her about statistics and how, how she runs the odds in her mind as she's playing poker. I have a weak mind to do that. I know do you play poker. Not well, not well, I don't play it well. I enjoy it because of the banter I enjoy harassing the other poker player and trying to get under their skin but other than that I'm not a very good poker player. There was a period when the app store first came out on the iPhone when one of the couple of apps was Texas hold them and I was playing it a lot as I was going to bed. I turned my mind off, and I got better at it then and I remember I went to big I was at Vegas for something, and I sat at a table and just kind of sat and hardly bat until I had a really good hand and one a few hundred dollars and then I'm excited I'm never playing again for money I'm up. And that's, you know, that's about as good as I can hopefully. I should pitch Ocon to this crowd you guys should all come to Ocon. And one of the one of the fun things we do at Ocon is play poker so there was a poker tournament which is both you're on and I aren't saying we're not very good we might be trying to hustle you. That's true. That's true. And I do play in the Ocon games and I do try to get under people's skin and I think I'm quite effective at it so it's a lot of fun there's a lot of banter that goes on which is which is fun. So, with the economics the philosophy of economics give us some idea of topics that are kind of cross between economics and and philosophy I mean I can think of one obviously with with Rob talk coming he famously wrote an article about objective value and and the objective is conception of objective value versus the Austrian conception of subjective value. The theories of value in economics and how they relate to the philosophical theories of value. That's one topic. I need input from other people and one of the things I'm about to send an email out about to a few people is what other topics should we do but here are some others. A lot of the the economists that are good a lot of the Austrians and others are attracted to anarchism and some other ideas that are an odd with objective is and why you said and how should we understand that and how should we navigate that. What about the views of human nature that are often assumed in economics like human beings are maximizers and so forth. Is that true it's not true. Okay well then. Is it wrong let it be an economics is it an approximation that's good enough for certain purposes, not for others how does one use it. What about the ways that are kind of like was I economic that people try to model things like in for example public choice theory, or various types of game theory that are applied to foreign policy for real politic. So it's a valid kind of method or not a valid in some cases and not another cases. How does it relate to more principled ways of thinking about foreign policy where you take seriously good and evil behind a lot of these things is a kind of assumption that there is a particular way that people are motivated and that it's kind of uniform across people but that's not true. So, how much does it matter that that's not true and for which of these cases does it. What would an economics that took more seriously volition and the diversity of values look like. What is value formation and how does that relate to theories of value in economics going back to to Tars work to the raptors paper. To what extent you find, how is ran view of value distinctive, particularly with regards to the idea that it's not all some fixed and then you just calculate the means to some and that we all share people have different values. What is rational and some irrational what is it for value to be rational. How was it formed. And so forth. Yeah I mean I think when you read what is capitalism. It's astounding how epistemological that article is, and so there's a whole question about the relation between epistemology and economics, whether it's around objective values. So, I think it's interesting to talk about the whole behavioral economics literature, the biases, the Coleman and others who have documented kind of biases that people have. And that connects to the rationale to the numbers and math and rationality topic in the part of a lot of the biases are statistical biases. I mean, I don't know about this is bridging conferences but some of the work being done by the people interested in bioethics has to do with biases and biases and research. So we're going to be talking about. Yeah, at the conference in a couple of weeks. Yeah, so all behavioral biases thing is, is a big deal in academia and in a lot of different fields. I mean, Okay, let's let's go back to the questions. Andrew asks, can Greg expound and man's life as the ethical standard, and each man's life as his purpose. Are those two principles in different contexts. So are they connected. So, through each person his own life is his purpose that's equivalent to his happiness being his purpose but because happiness is the, the emotional state you feel when you're succeeding at living when your life is going well when you're living in a way that's going to sustain you over time. When your, your joys are non contradictory because all your values are pulling in the same direction. So that is the purpose as an individual's life or happiness. The standard is man's life. And the standard is abstract, where the purpose is concrete. The standard is like a principle for about a type of thing human beings that you use to create a particular thing a life for yourself so in if you're if you're a doctor that's, you know, operating on somebody's body. Your goal is is that person's health right that's what you're trying to achieve, but you work out how to achieve it by the standard of human health you know what a spleen is for in general if it's for anything and how the hearts meant to work in general for a human being and you use that knowledge to guide you to help fix up this particular person. Likewise you use knowledge of human life in general. What kind of thing it is what components it needs to make your own life better to make your to make a human life for yourself. The one thing I want to kind of add to that that's maybe a little less obvious that I've been more and more part of my thinking on this topic lately is and which isn't as obviously suggested by the medical analogy is how much creativity is involved in coming up with a life for yourself in the in the and in pursuing your own life in the health care case, you might think it's you know there's one way the organs are supposed to function, and if yours are and I'm going to try to steer them into that nature, or, you know, apply drugs or surgery is needed to get it into that niche and it's all the same for everybody but what makes a human life work is much more abstract than that. There's at a concrete level know one way we all live to get that there's one way that means that you have to go very abstract. We have to be rational we have to be productive. We have to be purposeful therefore our lives have to be organized around goals, not have had to done those goals have to be productive at least the central one. Otherwise, we're going to quickly run out of resources and then everything would pulling against one another. I mean, Justin have the other version of these are very very abstract. You can, you know, be a, you know, hurting sheep or writing philosophy books or composing a symphony or, you know, baking alofa bread and you know, and any of these things could be your application or a parent or whatever, and you can still deal with these principles so a lot of what's involved in making your own life for yourself is figuring out coming up with a life for yourself. One of the cardinal values for end is purpose and purpose is your choice of the happiness which your reason is going to proceed to achieve, and I don't think that choice is just you choose happiness as opposed to unhappiness or not making a choice at all. No you choose like this, this is what my life is going to be about. And the principles of ethics I think it was sort of like the principles of composition, like if you're making an artwork. You're going to make your own specific artwork you're writing at least shrugged you're painting the Mona Lisa you're writing this song or sculpting the David there's some particular sculpture, you're making with a theme and everything's integrated around that. And the, the, the principles of art are about how to do that how to make whatever thing you're making well so that it functioned as a sculpture as an artwork. And that's always the principles of ethics or how to make a human life for yourself. What principles does it have to have to hang together into a self sustaining whole that will sustain you across a human lifespan, unable you to live and able you to be happy. All right. Thank you, Andrew. This is from India. Hello from India in Rand's novels people are black or white heroes of villains but in the real world, the person psychology knowledge and context make it difficult to slot themselves. Young readers get confused and can be obnoxious towards people around them. And he thought this is funny. Just talking about this before the show started about how young objectivists have a hard time categorizing people and and they treat them inappropriately as a consequence of this. Yeah. So you could overstate the extent to which this is true in Rand's novels. There are complex characters. Gail Weynand hero or villain well elements of each, even Guy Franklin overall bad guy but has some real redeeming characteristics that set him apart from from some of the others. And we reared in a hero but acting on the wrong principles and Dachne Tacker for that matter and acting self destructively. He's the guiltiest man in a room. According to Francisco a room that includes Jim Tacker right and Wesley Mao it's in all kinds of really horrible. So it's not. There's more. It's not everyone's all black or all white in her novels. It's that the gray that there is the complexity is resolvable down into bits of black and white kind of like with your on the shirt. And, and you don't need that many steps to do the resolving in real life I think it's a lot more complicated, a lot more steps a lot more subtleties I think it is ultimately resolvable into this act was good or bad this aspect of this person's character is good or bad this part of their life, their professional life their family life their romantic life that whatever is good or bad, but it takes work to sort those things out and it might be, you know pretty small compartments you have to get down to to get to where they're pure one or pure the other. And there's a lot of thinking about how the different factors interact. I think that's true and it's, you know, it's part of what one learns and learning how to judge people ran has an article on the cult of moral greatness that talks a bit about this. Well, and I think I think for young people who've just been exposed to objectivism and just studying objectivism. It is objectively very difficult you, you, you're, you're trying to do the kind of work that Greg described but you don't have the experience of 1617 1820, you don't know exactly how to do it and it's, it's very easy to make mistakes and to be obnoxious and to treat people in ways they don't deserve in, because you don't just don't have the context, and you don't have the knowledge of how to apply but part of how you learn is by failing at it and trying and falling flat on your face. And it's not like people who don't have idealistic philosophies to draw on non objectivists to do any better. They just regard everybody is mixed in gray don't have very high standards. Try to go along to get along and, you know, often mess up their lives doing it. World judgment is really important. A lot of people don't make, don't pronounce persistently wrong moral judgments because they're too cowardly to make more judgments at all. And you've got to, you know, it's an important part of life to make them, not always to shout them from the rooftops but to be thinking about the people you meet what's good about him what's bad about him what's good about her what's better better. What do I want to emulate at myself of his actions and support him doing and what things do I want to not. And, and, you know, that's, you know, most people aren't doing that kind of work. And one of the things that objectivism makes clear is the need to do it. But then once you recognize the need to do it it's hard to do it well and you have to learn it. Yeah, and young people, young people stumble around doing that until they figure it out. And it's hard. All right, let's see Michael asked does I in terms of epistemology break down. If we're all schizophrenic or do some schizophrenic people know how some deep at some deep level that they're not registering reality as it actually is. I don't know. I'm not schizophrenic so far as I know. I think if if everybody were schizophrenic it would be quite a bad situation we'd be in. I assume, or understand that there are degrees of schizophrenia there are people who are in the midst of a psychotic episode and can't make sense of anything around them or only can with the utmost of effort and you know a kind of heroic struggle. And there are other people who occasionally have, you know, who aren't in that situation, and, you know, maybe occasionally have a hallucination but can tell that they're hallucinations. I assume there are milder and more intense forms and milder and more intense episodes. If we take the kind of most intense kind of thing, we are having hallucinations and can't tell what's true from what's false and what's real from what's true, then yeah, any epistemology is inapplicable and that kind of thing you're not in control of your mind you're not able to think. And there's very little that can be said to you. And if there was you wouldn't be able to process it and take it in and so that's not what epistemology for for. You know, milder or borderline cases are, you know, cases where people are suffering from serious mental illness but not so serious that they're all the time, unable to be in touch with reality where then, you know, epistemological guidance is relevant to them to help them understand what's going on with them and what kind of help they might need to seek and what to do but it's, it's, you know, difficult and tragic situation mental illness and it's not very well understood I don't think. And I don't think all the gradations are well understood I in any case I don't understand them. And I'm not sure how well the professional sense. Yeah, and this idea that wall schizophrenic is a little absurd all you have to do is look around the world assuming we're seeing the world as it is, and see skyscrapers and and an advanced technology and iPhones and things like that to know that nobody at least is not schizophrenic. Otherwise none of this could be created. What would it mean to say we're all schizophrenic schizophrenia mean something means a particular condition. It doesn't even mean the same thing is psychotic or crazy you're, you're seeing things it's a particular diagnosis. Yeah, that you, you know you need to know something about it to make you can't. If everybody has it then nobody doesn't mean anything. It has to contrast with something normal and if we're all schizophrenic there is no normal. Maybe. So it's it. Yeah, it's Liam asks, what gives philosophy veto power over scientific claims. Yeah, I mean I don't love this veto power language as though we philosophers are the kind of high court, but there is some truth to it and so and it's a phrase Harry's used sometimes and maybe I may have that I don't remember Harry to think about it is that philosophies role is to integrate our knowledge. It's to bring it all together into one so you have a lot of different special sciences, studying different things, but you have to have a kind of perspective on how does knowledge fit together. What are the ultimate fundamentals from which all of these sciences branched out and what holds them all together that we have an overview perspective on the world. And if something is sucks that it contradicts. The fundamentals on which all knowledge is based and or if it would and or it precludes knowledge from integrating, then there must be something wrong with it. And so in that sense since it's philosophy is job to mind the integration and the fundamentals, it's philosophy is job to point out when one of these kinds of errors is made and so in that sense, you know, you could say it has veto power it's the one to call foul. But I don't think it's job therefore is to say, you know, quantum mechanics is out. This branch of evolution is out this thing or whatever like, you know, to throw scientific disciplines out it's job is to say something's wrong here. This thing as it's being formulated, etc. is wrong. Maybe it's a it's just an error in formulation and that there's a real important truth here that just needs to be kind of cleaned up or disambiguated maybe the whole field is garbage maybe but that's not the kind of thing philosophy can tell it can just tell. If you're saying there's no such thing as cause and effect. If you're saying that we're deterministic puppets and therefore that we can't know anything. If you're saying that we're not in touch with we can't be in touch with reality if you're saying we're all schizophrenic. Something's gone wrong. Now what exactly and what might be salvageable from what you're saying what might be a tremendous value that's gotten, you know, mixed up into a hash with some other things to British's conclusion that you really need someone who's a kind of gets real expertise in the field to sort it out and tell you the key facts. Thank you key facts for $50 key facts as popping in just to say thank you Greg your work made it easier for me to understand objectivism and better play its ideas to my life. Your old con talk a few years ago principles and personal values is absolute gold. Thank you I like that talk. That was the one we did no con on art. And so our on the romantic manifesto and I was trying to draw some parallels between aesthetics and ethics. It was a good talk it was a good it was a fun conference I enjoyed that conference was a nice theme for the conference. Okay. Greg you're still glad you voted for Biden. He just announced he'll be running for second term. Do you actually think Trump has a chance of winning. I don't know. Yeah, Trump has a chance of winning. I mean he won once. There's a sizable number of people who love him no matter what he does and I think he's less than 5050 shot of winning but if he's the nominee and he's not certain to be the nominee so he's pretty likely to be. So yeah he definitely has a shot of winning and and I hope he doesn't. Am I glad I voted for Biden. Yeah, I think it was an easy choice. Biden's awful. He's been a bad president, but he's been a bad president in pretty typical ways. There are a couple of things he did that are worse than I expected but not by much. He's crummy. I wish he wasn't president but given the options we have or who might be. He's better than most of the people on the left, who could have been the Democratic nominee, and he's better than Trump. Yes. I like numbers as is it a sanction to work with an alcohol capitalist like Brian Kaplan. I have worked with him I should say I've done it did a podcast with him you're going to do a debate with him in a bit. I don't think sanction is and work with our binary in that way. Either someone is you know such that they're not to be sanctioned and so you drive never never have anything to do with them, or you do have something to do with some of the sanctioning them. I think it's much more you think about what is the meaning of this interaction. What am I saying by having this interaction with this person. What am I endorsing about them by doing that and in what context. And so I do think it's a sanction if you're working with an anarcho capitalist in any way or even debating with them in any way that carries the implication. Here we are people who are fundamentally aligned. What we regard as a, you know, intermural difference, you know a fairly trivial difference between us within our team fundamentally we're together, but then there's this issue of difference that we have. And, and we're having that issue out. And when I interact with with anarcho capitalist I very much try to explode any implication to that thing. I interact with them in the way that I would interact with a Marxist. There are a lot of things on which we agree, but there are a lot of things on which we don't. And I don't take the agreements as fundamental to the disagreements, except for the agreement that this kind of intellectual exchange is worth having in this context. Now Kaplan's an interesting case because he's not there there are anarcho capitalists who I think are fundamentally about nihilism and tearing things down and that's their kind of thing. I think that's kind of what dominates the Mises Institute at this point and and I think it was what what dominated Ross Bard who's the kind of leading light of it. I don't think of Brian Kaplan as that kind of person in his motivation. And so I like Brian where I don't like other kind of people but I'm, you know, I think of Brian's politics, the way I think of the politics of some of the kind of leftists that I deal with who, you know are good on this or that issue. I am insightful on this or that issue but really wrong on other issues. Good. Yeah, I was I was going to say that it's sanctioned is not exactly that and, as you said, not all an alco capitalists are the same. I mean, there's some people that you wouldn't want to do anything with you wouldn't want to engage in any kind of debate with because there's such nihilists and there are others that like Brian that that I think that you can actually engage with on certain issues. So it's a Richard asked, is there a branch of philosophy that deals with meaning, like a combination of teleology, axiology and semantic clarity. Can you point to any references about meaning for filling higher needs. Two senses of meaning, at least at work here. So, philosophy of language in the 20th century. And then this kind of moved into philosophy of mind in the late 20th and 21st century, talk a lot about what it is for a word or a proposition to be meaningful kind of semantic content kind of stuff. So, in that sense, you know, those breaches of philosophy do that. I think they tend to do it in a way that's too detached from epistemology. So they kind of think like there's something that happens in order to be meaningful. All right now it's meaningful is it true, whereas I think that meaning is something that you abstract out from the activity of knowing. What you're studying is the activity of knowing things and if you're in the business of trying to know something sometimes you have something that is a theory that's false and it has meaning. Because of the role it's playing in being based on certain evidence and projecting in a certain way but it gets it wrong and so it's false. And I think that this is important understanding what's wrong with the arbitrary and some of things I think it's an important thesis of it follows from the objective is to acknowledge that semantics and epistemology are deeply connected. I think you mean by meaning here, not just the meaning of words, though you mean to include that, but having a life be meaningful and things like that. Having your life be directed on things. And I don't think there's a name branch of philosophy that does that, but pragmatism as a school of philosophy. What does the, you know, do whatever works kind of pragmatism, although they're related, but pragmatism is the school of philosophy talks a lot about human activity, including goal directed activity and, and so forth and the processes of having meaning and so forth being connected to that. So you can see in kind of pragmatist authors, a sense of how these kinds of things can be related. And someone like Bob random, who's a philosophy professor at Pittsburgh where I studied would be an example of someone who, who thinks along these lines. And I think, I don't mean to endorse this kind of view but I do think there are connections, knowledges for the sake of action I think meaning comes out of knowledge and knowledge comes out of it is there for the sake of I think there's it's right to see a connection between these things. So the, the pragmatists really stress mental activity, and indeed the activity of the whole organisms your activity in the world as the source of all of this. But in a way that makes it subjective so it's, it's, it's mental activity creates meaning creates purpose, etc. But there's not a kind of basis for that in reality. If you think of this as a subjectivist side. The other side of the alternative tends to see meaning involves passively hitching yourself to something which is a source of meaning of one sort or another. And I think the right alternative is that you do have to kind of make meaning for yourself both semantic meaning and purpose of meaning, but you do it in a fact based way and there's a way to do it in a fact based way, including based on the facts that give rise to the need for this mental activity. But I don't know of where you can find much written I would read some of the pragmatist authors for a sense of how they think these issues fit together, and maybe someone in the literature on well being in philosophy which I mentioned earlier which I think is one of the more interesting things going on connected to philosophy. These days. There's some talk about meaning in life. So what do you what do you view as the relationship between meaning and purpose, meaning in this in the in the moral sense in the in the in the purposeful sense. I mean I think of purpose is a kind of more technical term in philosophy as I use the meaning as a little bit more metaphorical but part of you can find meaning in what you're doing. Right. You can find purpose in what you're doing but it means something different. I think the more connected. Your activities are two purposes that you understand and wholeheartedly endorsed for good reasons and that you know are the happiness that you've chosen to pursue with your life. The more meaningful you find your life. The more meaningful you find what you're doing you doesn't just seem like one damn thing after another that I've got to do. But as it's infused with the sense of this is part of the life I've chosen to live and you want to try to make as much of your life as possible like that and then there are shortcuts to meaning shortcuts to seeming like there's some point to what you're doing shortcuts to purpose which involves, in effect secondhandedly taking over a purpose, or pretending it's a mystical both from the blue thing of the book, the purpose driven life where your purpose end up to be a slave to God, or, you know, all those comp where your purpose is to serve humanity as a whole. Well and Jordan Peterson uses meaning constantly kind of as an intrinsic something out there that you need to find. Find meaning. And I think that's, that's wrong I think the the, I mean, this is one of the things. Gail Wynand and Howard rock or talk a lot about in the fountain had, and that they bond over right this idea of people looking for meaning I have to find myself and so forth, and they're looking outside of themselves. It's, it's something you need to create. But not in a subjectivist way where anything you create you know you're going to write without capital letters or whatever and that's the meaning of your life. You have to create a human life and a life for yourself as the kind of creature you are and whatever meaning there's going to be is going to exist in the context of that system. So you're going to create a human life, which, if you're going to create it if you're going to succeed at it, if you're going to have it be a purpose you and have meaning has to have certain features, features based on the kind of organism you are and the facts that give rise to this whole enterprise. Right, Andrew asked, why are social issues dominating political discourse and how big of a national schism. Do you think abortion abortion issue will create. So, what was the first part of the question how our social issues dominant social issue dominating political discourse. Well in part because the political tribes don't disagree on other issues. So I mean, in the 2000, not 2000 in the 2016 election, which candidate was more anti capitalist. Trump was, but it's just edging it out I mean Hillary's no capitalist but they, there's so, there's so little difference in their views on economic issues. And there's no difference on their views of issues regarding rights, not in general, you know, one particular field, the Democrats are better on reproductive rights and the Republicans are better on certain economic rights although not all of them. And the Democrats are worse on certain technologies, you know, fossil fuels, and the rights to do what one will with them but you know probably better on biotech, although not by much so it's like it's on issues of rights and things on issues of political principle on issues of the economy. They're not very different from one another you have to measure it in the parts per million or parts per billion to get even the like AOC versus, you know, whoever you'd call a Christian Republican now. What's his name, the speaker. McCarthy, McCarthy, McCarthy. There's just not that much difference on the economic stuff on the right stuff on the other issues so how do you, you know, get attention and get your people to vote out the other person, it's personal attacks and it's cultural issues and I think this is the on both sides. There's a kind of flocking to issues where you can vilify not just the other people but other blocks of voters or make it seem like there's a kind of medicine the country and a certain of the people who are in power these people with their guns, or these people with their drag shows, or whatever it is, and, and illicit discussed reactions. So I think that's that's why it's happening how big will abortion be a schism. I mean, it has been a big schism in the country for a long time, but I think part of what we're seeing is that the support for the banning of abortion is a lot weaker than the anti abortionist thought it was the so long as they didn't so long as the structure at the court was such that anti abortion laws couldn't get upheld. There was a lot of enthusiasm for as a symbolic gesture, passing these laws that pretend that that embryos from the beginning are, you know, our, our, our full fledged people that see no difference between, you know, as I go in the 32 year old. Those kind of laws were very popular when, you know, it didn't cost anything to pass them it didn't affect anyone, just like repealing Obamacare was very popular when it wasn't actually going to get repealed. So once you, it should have been repealed by that that's not I'm not acquitting them in those in those but then as soon as it actually happens and the laws get into effect. Then it turns out that a lot of people including a lot of Republicans don't don't want them. Don't want these laws anymore. So, I don't know will the Republicans moderate I think, in so far as it's going to be a schism over this it's going to be within the Republican Party between the people who are, you know, die hard on this issue we want to have all abortions no matter what we don't care if it costs us votes, and the people who are, who are not and one of the more positive things I could say about Trump who someone who I to task is he's not a die hard about this issue. He was an opportunist anti abortion, and now he's you know opportunist on telling people to back away from it. And if that side of the Republican Party wins out over the religious side of it I think we'll probably end up with a lot of states moving to something more like a European model where you have, you know, less abortion freedom than you want to but not these kind of crazy heartbeat laws and six weeks long. Well, and abortion pill laws which is even worse. I think a long time to get to that better place even if we do get to it. Yes, I agree it's going to. There's no easy path there because so many people have committed themselves to certain position. And it's and it's again it's associated with a tribe. One thing that's striking to me is how few people viewed this as an issue. There's a few people with an objectivism thinking about who to vote for viewed this as an issue in 2016 in 2008. And, or whatever 12 all the different elections, I viewed it as a significant issue for a long time I thought we were a justice or two away from losing row. And I thought that we would lose it if Trump won the first term. Well, and to this day I think there are a lot of a lot of even objectives to think Trump's greatest achievement is the Supreme Court so I just don't think people put enough weight on this issue of abortion particularly men. I don't put enough weight on this issue of abortion and of course, the person who put the most weight on it. What brought us the importance of this to some extent is I meant I mean she didn't vote for somebody like, I mean Ronald Reagan right now seems like a saint. He seems like, you know, I, what wouldn't we give to have a Ronald Reagan running for president right now. And yet I didn't vote for him because primarily because not only but primarily because this issue of abortion. The big part of that that we should recognize the thing about Reagan is what he represented because the good about Ronald Reagan was in a way happening anyway it needed a figure to coalesce around, but there was a real pro market anti status backlash, and and you can see that we had thatcher in England we had Frazier in us. It was this kind of international thing that was happening. Reagan was the guy who would coalesce around in America it could have been around someone else or so we might have thought. And part of what his legacy is, I think the central to his legacy isn't those those economic liberties that are associated with him, which we're looking for a political champion, but the merging of that with with him. And it might have been that just where the culture was was that that was the only was going to happen and you know if it wasn't Reagan it would have been someone else but whether that's true or not that's what his his candidacy I think represented historically. That's what he's winning the Republican primary represented historically. That's the that I think why she was such a. Reagan was such an issue for her. Yeah, I mean she recognized that he was bringing them all majority Christianity deep into the Republican Party and entrenching it there and that turned out to be 100% right. I mean, and the age of the age of mediocrity is her essay on that and it's really shocking to read I mean just how how I mean she she said things like in 1980. Like, you know, don't call me a conservative I don't want to be associated with these people they're trying to do with the Ayatollah did to Iran in America. You know, she was not a moderate on this kind of issue. But as to the court I mean the, I liked the previous Supreme Court I liked the court with Kennedy. It wasn't going to stick for very long. And, you know, it just so happened that the forces were arrayed in a place that kept it in a relatively good stasis where the, the, the best parts of the Republican appointed justices act as a stay on the worst part of the Republican appointment justice we have to see where the new equilibrium is there are some good things about this court, but some really bad things and you know we have to see where it where it shakes out but but the overturning of row was, I think a real horror. And part of what was so horrible about it is that it did it while casting shade on the locker court. And it was like you could imagine a kind of conservative, who at least is applauding the better things about conservatism past, and wants to bring that back, but is indifferent to socialism. But what it's saying is, just like we realize there are no rights in the economic realm there's no right to your body either. And that is really disgusting. And Alito has a special place in hell for that. But I mean all of them. Yeah, Alito things particularly bad it will be interesting what they do tomorrow because we should hear tomorrow about the abortion pill. I mean, I mean, the fact that they had to delay it means there's a debate going on I thought there was a chance that unanimously with they would throw out the Texas ruling. I'm expecting they will end up throwing up the Texas ruling but who knows with these people. James says, when is it fair to say you're in a like boat scenario and can initiate force for your own survival. When, when free speech is a when is it when free speech is abolished. This strikes me as too abstract to really answer this way, because it's not like you so you're in USSR, and free speech has been abolished. You don't just start killing people left and right I mean you've got to think about like what specific situation are you in where you think that you can. You don't want to survive. It's you know it's zero some. And there are some situations under the leadership where it happens but not most of them not most of the time. In general, though, for something to be a life boat scenario it has to be short lived. It has to be a kind of emergency where if only you get out of this situation. You'll be able to go back to living a normal life by normal by the normal rules, and something makes it impossible in this situation, which you can get out of by doing it. But in a situation where like, you're at the border and you could escape the USSR or North Korea or wherever by doing this thing that would otherwise be immoral and would involve harming someone else. And then once you're on the other side, you know, our life starts again. Those are the kind of situations where we can come up with examples and weigh them. But if it's, you know, you're going to go on being a slave in a slave pen. It's not an emergency scenario. That's a scenario where life's just impossible and morality maybe doesn't apply, but not in the way of a life. Life boats are exceptions that you can exceptional contingencies that you can end and therefore get back to the business of living. I mean it strikes me that the question really is asking, when is it okay to start a revolution because it brings in the free speech issues so you know when do we get to the point where we can initiate force in order to liberate ourselves. Yeah, yeah, I think that's right. But then, then I'm very skeptical of revolutions by force. I think they're very rarely necessary when they're possible. You need to have enough people to win and not just to win but that are going to be able to cohere and create a stable system of government afterwards. And like, I can only really think of one case in history where I'm certain it was justified. And that was the American Revolution and that wasn't a whole bunch of people rising up before me. That was local governments, declaring themselves independent of another wider government that they were, you know, you know, in subservient to. And there are probably other cases like that I just where where that where that might be similarly justified. The other ones I can think of the war and actually violent they were protest movements or things like that. And that free freedom has come about by relatively slow transition, and then the creation of some kind of parliamentary body body, and that parliamentary body then asserting its authority over an autocratic like you know the parliament versus the king and things rather than guerrilla warfare type things that you maybe it could happen but you know it's hard to come up with a case almost all the time. The fact that you need to use guerrilla kind of warfare tactics shows that you're not in a place that is capable of free government if you want that there's not a population of people. Fred Hopper asks, since it oe have you noticed in university philosophy course teaching the idea of induction and unit measurement on mission as Peacock has spoken on, like in logical leap and actions of induction. Well, since I do I think we was published before I was born so I wasn't in a position to observe for a change afterwards. I don't think it's widely read by people in philosophy department so I don't think it had that kind of an influence. Talk about whether there are positive or negative trends in views about induction but I don't think it we in particular has has been a cause of that and I he doesn't really talk about induction. It has a couple of promising remarks and tantalizing things and particularly in the appendix and, and their ideas that that Leonard, you know later Leonard Peacock later used to develop a theory, but you know, it's not that's not an idea itself. He asks, do any academics, you work with in philosophy departments, have the slightest respect for Iran, are your students more interested in ran than they were a decade ago. Yeah, so they're there definitely academics I've worked with in philosophy department to have respect for for ran a handful of people in particular stand out. The, and people in other departments to economics and so forth sometimes. Students, the students in classes where I teach her are usually and I never teach a whole class course on her to ease you know, we're teaching a survey of figures views on the topic and she'll be one of them are often very receptive find her interesting including people who aren't antecedently, you know, predisposed to like her that his politics don't align or whatever. It was not a course on politics. It's hard to tell how much they're influenced by thinking I like her and what will the professor want although I'm surprised by how often students don't know which views I endorse and which views I don't I try not to tell them but I think I could always tell if I would have thought they could. But yeah generally students, you know, a lot of students see something positive in her and then I think take on some of her ideas. How do they come to me though I haven't noticed a big difference in the time I've been teaching in whether students are antecedently interested in read. Usually, you know, at least some people in the class will be familiar with her. Some will have positive views and some will have negative views. But that quickly they usually most of them won't have read her or will have read a work of fiction that they won't see the connection to what we're reading right away so it'll, you know, doesn't dominate the discussion of her. Michael asks, are you overall optimistic about our ability to spread objectivism and gradually change the culture do you think you will see real positive change in your lifetime. Yes, but not as objectivism exactly. So I'm optimistic about, and this is the thing I think matters. I'm optimistic about the ability of objectivists to move the conversations in the right direction to make the conversation better. And what I remember the conversation I mean like, if you look at how the way people talk about energy now is noticeably better, because of the ideas that Alex has, has been advocating for and he's become a big name in the field but even people who don't maybe don't know his name like, you'll see this better talking point about energy better the user, you know, the discussion is just better due to his influence, and due to his use of objectives and I think if you look in the field of intellectual property you'll see Adam Moss up influence. I think already I mentioned a well being literature in philosophy. Already that literature has been influenced indirectly by I ran in positive directions by people who were sort of semi objectivists or had an objectivist phase but didn't stick with it but retain certain ideas. And I think there have been some good popular books on well being that you have an influence on people's lives that indirectly there's some of that mark and I think there's a potential for there to be more and more of that and likewise in some different fields in philosophy that is much written in, you know, academic corners, but also, you know, outside of them. So I think, you know, it comes through people having particular influences on particular fields that don't look like one on one this is objectivism but you can see if you look deeper how it is having influence. And then, eventually, I think a lot of that adds up to oh there's a whole school here of objectivist intellectuals who are seeding a lot of this and behind a lot of this and so forth. And I think that I, I think I will see the, when they'll start to be a recognition of that fact that a lot of positive changes coming from the same intellectual, or a lot of change whether people think of it as positive or not that I think of the positive is coming from the same intellectual fountainhead. Right Richard s is the US undergoing a cultural revolution we leftist ideology infiltrates media academia and law, for example derivatives of critical race theory have at least some visibility today. I think the questions 100 years late. I think it happened. It happened a long time ago, in addition to influencing. What did you say law media and other things it influenced churches, it influenced parenting, it influenced a whole lot of other things. And it's busy it's metastasized a long time ago 100 years maybe is too much but certainly by the 60s it had, and some of it, you know, more than 100 years ago. I think now the same kinds of ideas are all over the place. And they're reproducing themselves all over the place in pulpits in conservative think tanks in leftist think tanks and University with, you know, minor variations, just like the same ideas were reproducing themselves amongst fascists and communists in the early 20th centuries with minor variations it wasn't the fastest we're all getting it from the communist Well, from the fact there was a overall direction where it started I think. Well, I don't know if this Hagle was before marks but the and sick that all these people but these kinds of well springs of bad ideas had gotten into all the main organs of the culture, including the organs that see themselves as opposed to one another, and the process by which they fought one another was just adopting slight variations of one another is bad ideas I don't think there's a kind of particular acceleration where bad leftist ideas are moving from campus to other parts of life they've been there, and they're developing along their trajectory there, both in left and right basket. Now if we talk about specific ideas like the particular ideas about the environment or about diversity, and particular ways of looking at it there then you can chart a course of this particular idea spread from campus to this place at this time. But I don't think that's the main story of what's of what's happening with the culture I think the main story is is things that are deeper wrong that did ultimately, you know, spread from academic institutions outward, but that the bulk of that work was done a long time ago. All right, Hoppe Campbell asks, is there anything. Is there anything you think Iran could be doing better. Maybe I should have told him already. You're out and I are friends I really like this show. I think it's certainly the best regular programming in a from an objective is projected but that's such a damning by faint praise it's a it's a low bar there isn't, you know anything anywhere near in the league of it and I think it's really important that that this is happening. So I think it's a fantastic show and I'm sure you know, when I when I notice something, I'll, you know I send an email sometimes he doesn't agree with you on that or whatever. Yep. My wife has a pet peeve about the pronunciation of one or two words and maybe that. My pronunciation is terrible. They're tiny things that I think matter. All right, Ian says, is the Irish society still active and engaging with non objectors philosophers. Yes, but we're trying to figure out what to do with it, because and how to change what we do with it going forward, because I no longer think the kinds of programs we would have there are the best forums for engaging with non objectivist philosophers. Only because I think we've now found better forms for doing it. So I mentioned the kinds of conferences that I put on and Tara Smith has put on Alan Goddus has put on where it wasn't about I ran is anything at the I ran society has to be was just about a topic, and we had some objectives and non objectivist philosophers engaging over the topic. I found that when we've done that kind of thing. More good has come of it. Then when we did the kind of programs and we do with the IRS, where we would have, you know, somebody write about I ran and content and we'd have a con scholar come in and talk about her that format of program. So I think there's other kinds of given the kinds of opportunities that there are now, there are probably other kinds of programming that it's better for the IRS sessions to be focused on that's where you know advantages. Versus that style that's from but that's something that the steering committee is deliberating about and thinking about. I don't know how much I say my own preference would be that more of the papers at the IRS conferences will be in the nature of I ran scholarship and maybe we'll have multiple people with a background in her rather than people who don't. Whether their objective is to not the people who've spent considerable time thinking about her and the other kind of engagement taking place in other forms, but we'll see depending upon what opportunities themselves. Yep. Good. Let's see Hoppe Collins, but Campbell asks, did you see Stephen Hicks debate with Craig Biddle about whether objectivism is a static system. I saw an ad for it I have I didn't know it happened yet I just saw the ad for it I haven't seen the debate. Yeah, I think it's still it's so going to happen I don't think I don't think it's happening already. Yeah. You planning on seeing it. I assume it's at a conference that I'm not going to I don't know. I mean if it's on YouTube I might watch it. I don't think I think I know where I stand on those issues I think I know where both of those people stand on it and I don't know. You know, I wouldn't expect to learn much but I sometimes feel a professional responsibility to keep up on things like this so if you know if I see a link to a YouTube video but I'll probably watch it. Michael, did we have any radical individualist presidents or were they all collectivist of varying degrees. You know, Washington Adams Jefferson and Madison were pretty damn good in their different ways. Each of them had had problems that I wouldn't call them collectivists, I would say they were all individuals I would think that Lincoln is I think Lincoln is primarily individual size though he made some mistakes and there are some things he did wrong. I'm sure there are some others you John Quincy Adams I think overall good. I'm not a kind of historian I don't know all of the figures but aren't too many presidents I think well of after Lincoln. Maybe even maybe Cleveland. Yeah, I don't know that much about Cleveland, even some of the better ones conducted really bad like Coolidge is often thought of by like happens to very good but Coolidge presided over the national elevation of the air wave, which is one of the worst things done. And still an immigration right wasn't cool it's terrible and immigration. I don't know where he's done in a way so that's okay. I thought the big immigration Act was passed on the Coolidge in the 20s. The first one that really blocked blocked immigration. And it's time wise, but I'm not certain. So I there's no, you know, I know the early American presidents pretty well. But not the later ones. Let's see. Liam says if Trump wins the nomination and gets absolutely destroyed in the general election by an 82 year old demanded man. Will we see a real shift in the GOP towards a more rational limited government party. I don't know. I'd like to think so. I don't think it's worth trying to some extent we thought when Biden won this in 2020 that would happen. I thought that I mean when it was as close as it was it wasn't that close by the way, but when it was as close as it was, rather than a blowout. And when Trump won the Republican nomination in 2016. I think it showed that America was a less good country than most of us thought it was. I think it's still historically a great country it's still better than any place else but I thought we were better than that. And given that he won that given that it was possible from to both win the nomination and then win the presidency. But even winning the nomination I think was a more important thing. Nothing else that's happened since should be too surprising. Nothing really that happened with him surprised me since then a country that's willing to vote for him once people will be willing to vote for him again and I think everything that happened. I was surprised by it we're kidding themselves I think the response to co vid the response to losing in in in 2020, all of that was baked into what we knew he was by the time he won the nomination. So, what will snap people out of it. I don't know I don't think there's a kind of moment where everybody's just going to change their mind I think it will be a gradual, you know, gradual transition away towards more positive values. If someone on the right arises, making a more positive case for something positive you could imagine, you know, Tim Scott or Nikki Haley or someone doing something like that but we haven't seen much of it yet. And I don't know when that will happen I don't think Biden's unpopular enough that he's not going to have a, I think he probably win against Trump, but I don't think he would have to kind of blow out that's at a proportion to what happened before maybe the Trump people will just kind of get tired of, you know, losing over and over again and they'll go home but. I think that that's probably more likely what will happen and that you know there'll be these conversion experiences, but I don't know and I don't know the timescale. So let's ask, and if Trump wins the second term, will he be able to get anything done or will the GOP morph into a full fascist populist reaction every party. So those aren't alternatives to one another. The more that it does that the more likely he will be able to get the kind of things done that would be would be terrified, but we should be asking these kinds of questions about, you know, the Democrats do what would make them better and get better. So I don't know I think it's it would be a very bad thing for the country if he won again. Certainly versus someone like Biden who's a lame milk toast. He's pathetic and corrupt in various ways and bad, but all within normal bounds. If it were someone like Bernie Sanders you could, you know, see like it's a new low for the left and the new low for the right and what are you going to make of it. But that's not the case with Biden he's the same old contemptible junk that all presidents left and right have been for for decades. People are worse than they have but you'd expect all movement is moving left. Con is particularly bad she doesn't think the worst I know of in the administration but um, but you expect I mean there's always better and worse people within the administration there were some good people within the Trump administration, actually good people, and certainly some people who are better than would have been the alternative. In the Democratic administration, but you know again likewise on some issues there are better people in the Democratic industry. Okay next few questions all by wick zong. So wick asks, you guys have viciously criticized Trump over the last seven years. Thank you we have. Is it appropriate when he is persecuted by the entire system. He is a victim. He deserves nothing to brag about. And it doesn't exonerate you from being evil. Maybe deserves his victimhood status right. And I don't think he is a victim, but I don't think that's the story of him in general, but no excuse. I, I, you know, I certainly don't regret and intend to continue to criticize and viciously as long as he's in politics. But what is important to not do and to make sure that we don't do that we should keep ourselves honest about in our in our hatred of Trump, which I think is justified I think one should hate him is not to use it as a justification for soft on accepting of evils that present themselves as opposed to him, just as opposition to those evils shouldn't make one soft on sympathetic to him, or to anything else that that pops up and you know classifies itself as right or anti left. It's very easy to fall into kind of team sports in politics, and I think one has to recognize that we're in a world where the culture and the political culture is bad and broken and wrong. And as a result, all the major movements are going to be bad. And some of them are going to be worse than others at certain times. But it's not that there's like some permanent political faction that's good and for the good. In a, in a country that has two dominant political parties or two dominant political factions, which is how any country with voting tends to shake out. You know, either there are two parties as in our country or in a parliamentary system there are many parties but to tend to be the dominant ones. What you have to think about is not which party is good or which is evil. You have to expect that the country is going to be in the hands of one party sometimes in the hands of the other party, the other time and and if you're thinking about your life over a lifetime. It's not that one of them is going to win and the other is going to lose it's that power is going to be shared and switch back and forth and what you have to focus on is which things are making one or the other or both sides worse or better. And there have been periods where both sides have been getting better on significant issues, both sides went from being not really pro free trade to pretty pro free trade over the course of the 70s through the 90s. Now both sides have gone to being anti free trade right that's that thing kind of happened both sides went to being pretty pro abortion from being anti abortion or from abortion being illegal in the country over the course of the 60s and the 70s. Now one side has gone to being really anti abortion and maybe it's maybe it'll start to retreat from that on various issues. You know, one side will get better or worse. And you've, what I'm more focused on, you know, is what's going to make the Republicans a little bit better or a little bit worse or a lot better or a lot worse, and likewise for the Democrats. So Bernie Sanders winning the nomination or something, or AOC becoming Speaker of the House or something would be a really bad thing for the country because it would make would empower the worst side to the Democrats. And the Democrats are going to be half of who's ruling us for the foreseeable future. Whereas, you know, moderate milk toast candidates who are good on abortion, only moderately bad relative to the Republicans on the economy. And don't have much to say, you know, like, nothing's pragmatist, nothing's are, you know, the best we could hope for from the Democrats and so we should be hoping for it. And from the Republicans, it's the same thing. Do you get people like that, or do you get real nihilist destroyers. And, and do you get, you know, people like a Paul Ryan or someone like that who has, you know, some good ideas in some fields and there's a nothing in most others, or, or do you have someone like a Trump and you know, it's that distinction that matters, much more than distinction between the Democrats and the Republicans who wins a particular election. Yeah, I agree. We just asked what's your evaluation of trauma Charles Murray's work on race. I think Charles Murray is contemptible, not primarily because of his work on race, although I think his work on race. I read the bell curve. Very, very long time ago. I don't remember all the details I don't remember find I didn't find it persuasive. But I think the, there's a general deterministic mindset he has a kind of thinking that we're made mostly and a real, and not by our choices, and a real collectivistic impulse go running throughout his thinking and I'll tell you the thing that most horrified me when I read it by Murray, much more than anything he said about race again I think he's wrong and bad on a lot of things he says about race but this is the thing that most concerned me was in his book coming apart where he was bemoaning the fact that, you know, if you're really smart way back in the day whenever he thinks it was good. A smart man, you know you go to college with other men, but there'd be no women there, and you go back to your home town and find the smartest girl in your, you know, hometown who wouldn't be that smart, and, and you get married to her and have kids whose intelligence would be average maybe a little bit raised by your intelligence but brought down by your wife, and if you were really smart woman in the town, you know whatever you'd marry the local farmer, but now that women go and get education to the smartest men find the smartest women, and they can come together and they can be super smart and have super smart kids, and then there won't be and therefore people in the country will be very stupid and people, and, and he's one I think it's silly to think that that happens is what's happening but to the bemoaning of the fact that intelligent people can find one another. That's disgusting, it's despicable, and if, if you think something like that is happening we're like finally the best of your smartest most ambitious most whatever positive trait you think you have of both genders are able to develop themselves to the utmost and get to know one another, and you regard that as anything less than a fantastic wonderful thing that any possible downside of which is marginal and can easily be dealt with, I think it's something really spiritually despicable about that. And I think of him as this kind of decrepit envious collectivist soul strolling around through the earth spreading his sick misery. And that's what I think of him spiritually. Now what do I think of his figures and stuff. I find what he's. There's something odd in the kind of fixation on IQ, a lot of which I think is kind of bogusy science I think there's something strange about the way it's driving his work I think the things that that he's written in response to him about, about it I think are largely right and have a kind of wisdom to them. On the other hand, he's, he's treated as a kind of evil non person who anyone talking to is therefore, you know, committing some kind of crime or whatever and I think that's awful. It's awful that there was violence when he spoke at Middlebury. That's totally unacceptable. On the other hand, the response to it by saying well he's, you know, wonderful and one of us because other people don't like him is not the right response to that. But, you know, so he's, he's one of these kinds of people. I don't regard him as any kind of an ally in the fight for freedom. I don't regard him as, as pointing to stats that are otherwise hidden that people don't know everyone knows there's a lot of, you know, disproportionate rates of crime in African American community and so forth that's not, you know, some great revelation. There are a lot of questions about why and what to do about it but I don't think he shed as much light on them. I think again, what do you think about fire defending Amy wax. This one I find a little more. It's a similar issue in a way. So, I think waxes views are also pretty contemptible. I don't think buyers conception of free speech in general much wider than the wax issue is mistaken. There are things that they're very good on but they don't think they really understand the issue of free speech. They come out of the free speech movement of 1965, the kind of protests at Berkeley and so forth which ran condemned at the time for the very reasons that are relevant now. One of their kind of things that all the kind of free speech folks now clean the ones that fire very proud of was the ACL use defense of the Nazis right to march at Skokie, but the Nazis didn't have a right to march at Skokie. If not a moral right and the law shouldn't be set up to have that right. Now, if we're going to let everybody else march, you can't just exclude the Nazis and so in that sense, it's true but there's a kind of sense that free speech means everybody being independent of everything. And therefore, when somebody's ideas thought speech are intolerated by some party that therefore that group is a persecuted minority like that other question or asked about Trump, and people should rally to their side and I don't think that's true. It's not a violation of anyone's free speech not to want to have dinner with them, not to want to talk to them, not to want to debate them to regard them as beyond the pale. One of the things that wax has held I think should place her outside of most pales. That said, she has tenure at a university. There's a tenure contract that specifies under what terms she could be fired or not by your to so that those kind of contracts for better or worse be respected. I think is important because part of how you defend your rights is through contracting and making contracts with, you know, that you can rely on and so if it turns out that attempts to dismiss Amy wax run afoul of her contract then she should be defended and it makes sense for fire to defend her and I don't know that's an issue of exactly how their contract is written. But some of the things I've heard her say, I think are incompatible with being with being a teacher. If you're teaching people and you're saying publicly like my Asian students are this way and my black students are that way. I even if that's true it's not. It's not which I don't think it is but it's not. You have certain responsibilities to about how you discuss the people who you're teaching or who in your charge in that sense, but I think are part of taking on that kind of a job. I think some of the comment she's made her in violation of that. And she's part of a really ugly current in American thought that starts later after the Civil War where you get a certain kind of distortion of liberalism that comes to think that freedom is and freedom and I wanted to vote for a system that will keep us free is part of some special feature of white Europeans and only white Europeans having can have or are likely to ever get. And so that the key to keeping a free nation is to make it unfree and get rid of freedom of association in various ways so as to keep it white. That is I think a really horrible view that had a really horrible history was related to some of the horrible laws that we talked about before, and it's what wax is a kind of is a proponent. And I think it's been a real mistake on the part of advocates of free speech that they've not just said, you know, it might be wrong that this horrible woman get fired given her given her contract and the principle that which are running universities regarding her as an ally or a friend, and I was at the Stanford conference on academic freedom where she was and I was bothered by how friendly reception she got by people who I think should know better. Were you concerned about the financial, but financial prospects when you chose an intellectual career. Yes, but I had reasons to be less so and I had to. And the first thing like when I went into college. I had the sense that you have to go somewhere and get some degree in something that sets you up for some job and if you get the wrong degree and you can't get a job in that thing. You know so you end up in the bowery somehow. And I didn't quite literally think that but it's kind of the premise I was operating on. After my, I think I've told this story before maybe even on the show, but after my freshman year in college, by which time I was very interested in philosophy. And I read that was wrong. I got a job through a temp agency, basically doing the lowest kind of data entry thing you could do at an office it was an office that was. And I realized like this place is not well run this data that I'm entering is going to be obsolete by the end of the summer when I'm supposed to be done entering it. Plus, I'm moving data from a moving sort, whatever so I ended up writing some scripts to automate that job. I didn't have any particular background in programming I learned a little bit of programming when I was a kid, and then forgot it. And you know it wasn't the languages I was using then. But it's just I had I was thinking like this isn't the way to do things I was paying attention to why it was being asked to do what I was doing how it was fitting into the larger workflow. What could I do to make it better and I did this and I ended up getting basically promoted to writing other programs to do other things like that. And I paid a lot of attention to like what's going on at this business. Who's good at their job and who isn't who's recognized for being good at their job and who's what's making this place rock. And I realized, yeah, I could do well here. I could get promotions here I can come work or I can go to another company and do something like this, the things that are making me able to add value aren't that I have this degree or this piece of paper or this particular piece of knowledge. But that I'm being rational I'm thinking about what the point of this work is. And it makes sense it's like Atlas shrug says it's the mind and the mind makes things work and it's not always the person at the top and you can find a place to add value. And the next summer, one of my best friends did the same thing you got a job also data entry at another place, found things he could, you know, learn to code and he knew less about coding I think that I was calling me up but how do I do this function or whatever. Wrote some software for them did some other things ended up as a vice president of that company, and then went on left with the CEO of that company to go found another company and and had a, you know, good career in business and. And I just had the sense that, oh, if you think if you're thoughtful if you're industrious if you're looking for opportunities. There are ways to work your way up and make money so I'm not. It's not like I'm going to be a bomb if philosophy doesn't work out and moreover, the one thing, given my interest in my skill sets it's really fostering what's good about what I value in myself and makes me able to do this is philosophy so I'm not losing anything by studying it. It was my first decision when I was in college, that made me very confident in pursuing a philosophy major and thinking that my philosophy was relevant to it I could find a way to use it in business by need to, or in some other field. And then the other thing that made me more confident in it is by the time I was in graduate school and getting out of graduate school there are more and more opportunities through and some and through a I to do work as an specifically objective is intellectual decision I ran that a market for, for non for work on her that made possible non-inventional scholarly career path, and most of my work has been, you know, in one way or another part of that. So I realized that that existed and I was very pleased by and grateful for those opportunities but I also like saw the market and saw that that was, you know, possible, and that influenced some decisions about how open I was on what I worked for what things I did and so forth. Not saying that every decision I made was right or perfect or my career model everyone should follow but it is, you know, part of being productive is thinking what what is there a market for and how can I make there be a market for the things I wanted to be. Yep. Which says why should we criticize the way when the left dominated the major institutions academia media Hollywood tech medical establishment etc. I don't understand the question I mean, the left dominates some institutions, the rights dominates others. They're both important factors in the culture, and they feed off one another they're not enemies. They're part of one system by which ideas propagate and and take hold. Why should we in particular criticize the right that is me in Iran, because the people who are apt to listen to us already are more aware of what's wrong with the left. Why do you give so little credit to Christian tradition when many good ideas arise from it. So the good ideas influenced by Greek philosophy they still manifested itself in this tradition. I don't think I'm not convinced any good ideas did come from that tradition. Whatever dominant I ideology there is, whether it's a religion or a philosophy, other ideas that are around independent of it will get accreted to it and maybe spread or passed along with it wrapped up in it. So some good ideas that got spread and wrapped up with Christianity and in some people's minds, you know, stand with but I don't think any of them come from it or were developed because of it. There might be some I'm not, you know, close to that possibility I could think of some possible ones actually, if you're interested. But I don't really think of good ideas as having come from it and I don't think it gets credit for the, you know, things that traveled along with it, despite being contrary to its nature. The same goes for Islam, and the same goes for Judaism, and the same goes for Eastern religions that you know I'm sure the same thing is true of in Hinduism and Buddhism and so forth, and the same goes for various, you know, commonly secular creeds like Marxism, you could say well a certain intellectuality goes along with that or interest in history goes along with that and those things are true. And it's good that people are interested in arguments or in history but it's not due to anything about Marxism it's just those things hitchhiked into some people's or you know, got tied up with Marxism for some people and some people's past to those good things were through it. But not for any reason, you know, that's due to what's distinctive about that ideology same with Christianity same with Islam same with Judaism. That's how I think about it anyway. Is anything good. It's possible in my mind it had some role in in breaking down views of innate difference, innate differences among people that justify authority, justified political authority that we each have an individual relationship with God and, as therefore we're all equal in our connection with God being a metaphor for all equal in our connection to reality and etc. There's a kind of egalitarianism in Christianity which I think is overall bad but was perhaps in some sense a, you know, counter force to a kind of tribal worship of power chief dens, and you know maybe add some positive if I'm not convinced of that but I can see some case for it. So that Christian governments were almost all theocracies run by empowered classes for almost all of its history makes me think that whatever elements might have been compatible with that we're also, you know, hitchhikers, not not things essential to the process. So K facts as a follow up speaking Christianity what's the origin of the idea that Christianity is the foundation of individualism. I heard it in the wild recently and have been wondering about it since. There's a period where ran sympathetic to this idea. I think it's in in Rose Wilder Lane, and maybe is about Patterson somewhat. Maybe more lane than Patterson, but in some of the kinds of intellectual libertarian ish intellectuals that some of them call themselves libertarian individuals intellectuals of the 40s. I don't know where it originally comes from. You can see I mean there is a real individualism in lock and lock is a Christian, and some of how he puts it is tied up with not really Christianity so much as a kind of general see ism that he has he is a Christian but the parts of it that he draws on in his political are much more generalized views of God that anything specifically Christian. So there is you know that history of it developing a lock, you know how how lock city is developed and we're received. That might be the closet but I haven't traced the, the claim, who first was saying it and grabbing it to Christianity and and had it spread. And I find it interesting on this because she, if you look at her early notes. When she's first writing, she sees Christianity is like the enemy. It's the perfect kindergarten for communism. She wants to see it be known as the harshest critic of religion and it's greatest enemy, and so forth and and it's a source of all hypocrisy it's just, I mean you can imagine a more anti religious writer around the late 40s, early 50s. She's, you know, still not religious anti religious still an atheist, and still very fiery about that, but allowing that Christianity might have been important and spreading individualism that she might have more in common with some of the Christian thinkers she came to have a lot of respect for Aquinas for example. And, but, you know, by the mid 60s and certainly into the 70s, the she became very concerned about professional religious taking over the conservatives movement as the communist to have the liberal movement. She thought those things were analogous she thought it was happening she thought it had happened by the time of Reagan and you don't find anything positive without religion. After that. Apollo asks, Have you read the senses as perceptual systems, the Gibson book. I assume so. If you mean Gibson's book, then yes, but many I mean like, you know, 20 years. Okay, Liam asks, yep. Will Social Security be the first major socialist system to be privatized, since it's going bankrupt much sooner than expected, and it's the easiest way to transfer to private system. I have no idea. Yeah, I mean, I doubt, I doubt it. I think it's one of the last. Ian asked, Have you read much about the niana and why a why a school of Indian philosophy, which had a strong emphasis in epistemology. No, interestingly, I heard an interview about it just earlier today. You know, a book that was recently translated. And then the book seemed interesting, but I haven't read much about it. I don't know very much about Indian or Chinese philosophy. But I think they're worth someone studying and they're worth my, you know, learning a little bit more than I do maybe a lot more but starting with a little. But you know, a lot of things are worth looking into and there's only so much time so I don't know when I'll get to it. Ian asks, Alex Epstein is doing great work in energy policy but which industry would you like to see the next Alex take on. I don't really love the question only because it's so much depends on the person and what they know about and have a passion for and, you know, but some industries where I think something could be done and I'm trying to help get done. One is healthcare. And I'm planning. I have a group of people beating the talk about the healthcare industry and planning to have a conference about it. So healthcare is is a big one. Probably finance would be good. And, you know, you're on stun some some in that you're running down together with their book on finance. I think there's a lot more that can be done there. It's a kind of uniquely vilified industry and important in ways people don't don't recognize. And tech, like AI and high tech, it's hard to, they're not in the same sense as, you know, you'd need a very different approach to the industries that than the. It's not that they're seen as the villains exactly, although progressive, you know, more and more they are. It's more what you need to be doing is reframing the issues. You know, which Alex has done a lot of in the industry and energy, I was into the kind of challenge involved in the tech industry is just different less. More measurements have to be changed to support the strategy over. And some of the others. Mark says, what is going on with the Salem Center and similar think tanks right now and what would be some ways to get involved and take action. I'm not sure what counts as similar think tanks as I think of the Salem Center is kind of eclectic it's a, a group of academics on campus who have views outside of the mainstream, which views align with one another. Being pro capitalism and pro free markets, but not necessarily a much else so there are some people work there that I agree on a lot of other things on people like, you know, it's, it's not all, it's not all one thing. I think, in general, the two things you can do for a group that you're interested in, whether it's the Salem Center my program at the Salem Center or the center in general, or any other group or think tank is you can follow them and see what the programming they have and what you might want to get involved in. So in our case, you could follow our YouTube channel and you can see what comes up on the YouTube channel and watch it you can get on our mailing list which you can do at Salem Center. Oregon you can get mailed about our events and cut out to them and so become a consumer of their content. And then if you really value the content and want to get more involved. You could donate money, or you could, you know, volunteer in some way. And what opportunities there might be that will depend on the organization we don't have a quite a volunteering program but if somebody, you know, wrote and said I'd like to help you guys out. What can I do depending on when it was I'm sure they're, you know, we generate ideas. Marcus says asks thoughts on the Austrian school, and then your 2023 24 plans thoughts on the Austrian school. I'm not an economist I'm not that knowledgeable about economics so I don't know how much to, you know, I am really qualified to say about it. But what I've read of van Mises in particular, and to a lesser extent Hayek I've learned from and think there's some wisdom there are also some philosophical errors. I found Rob Tarr's piece which we mentioned before on theories of value and the different schools of economics and particularly his take on the Austrians, very suggestive and in, you know, inspiring of thoughts that I don't know enough about all the you know, to, to be certain everything is right I just I'm not an expert on it. I think it's it's kind of tragic that this kind of thinking about economics has gotten tied up with anarchism as it has largely through through Rothbard and whether there are deeper causes of that. I'm not really influenced of this, this, I'm a leading figure, I'm not sure I could think of some things that might be. That's sort of in general what I think about it. And for popular Austrian writers they tend to always be predicting doom and gloom, and you know, be, you know, stopped clockishly right sometimes. Yep. So that actions and what was the other one plans for your plans for 2023 24. I'm teaching, I'm teaching a few classes at Texas over the course of the year. I'm going to where we're probably having a conference on health care policy in the fall precise dates to be determined in personnel. That's something I'm looking into and conference on ethical issues in the spring and probably some smaller workshops and I'm looking into all the writing projects I want to expect to be done with papers and books that I want to be out the door by then. So action Jackson says nice Gibson SG back there. Who are some of your favorite guitar players and or bands. Well that's only one of the nice Gibson sg is another one hanging over there. That's out of shot. I have a lot of guitars. Some of my favorite with guitar players and bands. Um, well, for every band, the Beatles, I don't think there's any comparison in terms of overall musicianship and influence. But I really, I play a lot of blues, I listen to a lot of blues and I like blues players, particularly I love BB King and and who lesser of San Albert and Freddie, I love the muddy waters band, the hallowed wolf band little Walter for that's kind of where my guitar playing influenced kind of tastes in music are. That's the kind of music I mostly play not simply also Bob Dylan. The band that is the leave on home Robbie Robertson band particular guitar players. Well, since there's an SG there I should mention. Dwayne Almond and now a Derek trucks both SG players at least in slide really fantastic players I'm seeing the Jesse trucks band sometime in May when they come to Texas of people playing now I think he's the best guitar player in that kind of blues influenced action Jackson also asks, are there any blogs you frequently visit or recommend reading resources, how about something you think we've never heard of any topics resources news economics tackle logs. Um, Well, substack these days. Yeah, I mean I read and or listen to some of very wise stuff. The, the dispatch, particularly I really like their legal podcast with Sarah is going David French which is called advisory opinion, whether one agrees or disagrees with their particular takes on the law. They're very kind of informative about what's going on on the docket and what are the legal issues that are coming about. So I listen to that podcast a lot. The Iran Brooke shows the favorite. We talked about Richard Hananya. Oh yeah Richard Hananya, we were talking about before he's associated with the with the Salem Center, but really mostly independent academic intellectual comes and gives talks here. Well, his, his blog or some stack I guess has been really good in the past few months and a surprising number of he's only got onto it a few months ago but almost everything I've read by him has been, been really interesting on different particular issues on this is a podcast rather I don't know about but there's a podcast the history of philosophy podcast, but I think it's really valuable on the history of philosophy. And someone mentioned Indian philosophy is a main podcast stream that's the history of Western philosophy and second everyone that I think already did the history of Indian philosophy now is doing the history of Africana philosophy, and then it's going to do the history of Asian philosophy of East Asian Chinese philosophy, and it's you know little 20 minute episodes on different subjects but they're very good ways just learn a little bit about a lot of different things and think about what you might want to read more about. That's in philosophy my friend that type men has a podcast called elucidation, which is a really good philosophy podcast. It's just too a fair number of that's really good and that he'll interview people from widely different specializations different areas and get them talking in a way that makes what they're working on accessible to a lay audience. And I find that really interesting and valuable exercise and I love them. So those are some of the podcasts I listen to I listen to more podcasts than I read blogs. When I'm reading it's mostly books or newspaper. So he says, for most people your identity is the less the least important thing about you training kids to make identity the most important thing in their lives seems like a path back to the bronze age. Well, I mean I think if you really think about what your identity is it's crucially important about up to you, but it's not being white or you know half Jewish and half Italian by sent which I am, or, or, you know, middle class or like that. Your identity is that you're a human being with a mind, and then a mind that's focused itself on certain values and made your life about certain things and I certain virtues. And yeah okay this other stuff is true of you and it might be relevant in various ways but it's not the central thing. There's a really nice piece on identity and education and developing an identity by Matt Bateman on the web page of Montessorium Montessorium is a think tank associated with with higher ground, and Matt Bateman is a philosopher there and he and I were involved with a kind of a group that was discussing through identity issues as they came up in education, and one of the outputs of that was Matt writing this essay. And one of the points he makes is no identity is important. It's wrong to think of your identity as about whether you're gay or straight or black or white or older young. It's, you know, those things have some role but they're, they're the minor stuff. Good. All right, let's see gale says healthcare needs much attention thank you Greg and you're on. And then we'll end with Zach saying love the interview. Thanks for this. Thank you Zach. All right, two plus hours as usual. There's a lot of lots of questions. Thank you. Oh, one more thoughts on the new University of Austin. Will you be working with them. I mean I don't have any relationship. I don't have any professional relationship with them as of now. I have some, I know people who do. I like the idea of forming a new university. I like the idea that if you don't like the president universities, trying to do it better. And in particular, I think one of the things that you want to have when you form a new university is a good attitude towards the diversity of ideas being you know shared on campus and being discussed. I don't think they have too much more than that yet. And I think they need a lot more than that I think they need a view about what's gone wrong with the other universities. They need a view about what is their value proposition that they're offering people how they're going to give them a superior education. And then how they're going to organize their, their company and their business and their hiring practices and so forth to solve the problems that of course other universities to be, you know, to not be to their liking. And maybe just rebooting, you know, like you just start something that's exactly the University of Chicago, but you started again today. You know, maybe that would help you just like when you reboot your computer or do a new load of the operating system you get out of a lot of crud and you know maybe that helps and maybe they'll do something like that. But it seems like they're not they have the unit they're going to be a new kind of university they don't seem to know much about what it is when I had conversations with the founder of it. I happened to have dinner with him and a bunch of people at one point and we were talking about it and the things they didn't have answers to surprised me. I would have thought there would have been a more worked out view for example on tenure and what's right or wrong with it and how you're going to try to solve the problems. It's meant to solve. And the other thing that bothered me is when you looked at who they initially had as advisors. It was a really good list it had a lot of people I like in it. Stephen Pinker was among them Glenn Lowry with only the people I have a lot of respect for. And then they made their first hires I wasn't as impressed with who they hired and one of the first hires was I forget her name Brett Weinstein's wife. Yeah, biologist and the main thing she was on about there was something kind of quackish to do with the, with the pandemic I forget if it was that ever met in was the wonder drug or something else but something that that was kind of all she was talking about it didn't strike me as a promising first hire in a science department whatever one thinks about the particulars of the politics about about that drug it wasn't. And it felt like it was becoming a kind of refugee camp for the cancel, which is not a recipe for being a good school even if there needs to be refugee camp for the cancel. And that's not enough. And, and I think around that same time Stephen Pinker backed out of the initiatives and I think that that was sad that I think he was a kind of good influence on it and so. And I think he might have been I'm just guessing might have been uncomfortable with that hire I don't know. So, they're trying to do something very hard, I think it's good that someone started a new university. I haven't done anything for them, but I've not been as impressed as I'd hope to be with the steps I've seen so far and, but hopefully they'll create something really good, or at least competitive with the other universities and maybe if they don't. But they managed to create something that at least you know as some students it'll be an inspiration to other people to try something else until we get something really good. And finally kfx says how much of a super chat donation would it take to get Greg to shred or gently play something on the live stream. You're on that's up to you how much how much should be I'm happy to play if you would play play a little bit and we'll make that the exit music. I mean I need to know, can you hear this this one's not plugged in, but it's it's not. Can you hear it sound okay it's out of tune but play something. Is this audible. Now really know you'd have to put the mic hold on a second. Yeah. But they have to pay for this because I don't I'm going to bring it in from the next room. Pay up kfx. I don't know 50 bucks. Come on. Let's let's make it to 800 bucks. Where's kfx he he does that and he disappears on us. The time. Zoom is noise isolating out I think we get the volume up enough. We can do it. All right. This is a treat guys. But we don't know yet. Might be a heart. Might be a harsh. There we go kfx just paid up and Hugh came in and right so we've got a whole array of supporters now. Thank you kfx. Nothing at all. Nothing. Greg can you hear me because we can hear you. Greg Greg Greg Greg Greg. Greg. He can hear us. Greg. He's jamming and he can't hear us. No can hear they can hear anything from the guitar. Interesting. Is your mic directional? Can you direct it? Can you put it right in front of the Try it but I'm going to do it by this time. Is this audible? No. Guitar channel any any advice on how we can get this to work. That that I heard something there. No. All right. One more try. How's that? You guys can't hear anything right now. It's loud. No, I feel bad. Not anything I was going to do was going to be that zoom. It's a zoom filter. I think I think it's a problem with zoom. I think if they assume it's noise, I guess, and they filter it out. You have to set zoom sound to professional music. I don't know how to do that sound. How do you do that? Do you do that or do I do that? I'm looking and looking at audio settings. Anybody really wants to hear me play enough that it's. Well, if I go to here, here's audio settings. Yeah, I would go to instead of auto, I would, I would get rid of auto. My performance audio. Yeah, recommended for whatever. Yeah, try that. I'm trying that on. All right, I'm going to put the guitar amp back on. Quieter because it was way too loud in the house. And and we'll see if you could hear it. Last last. Can't hear anything. It's weird. Hear that. No. No, can't hear anything. All right. Well, then for some reason we can't hear no matter what I do. So my apologies, but. I tried guys. Sorry. You'll have to come to Ocon. Maybe, maybe Greg will do a performance at Ocon. Or I've got stuff up on Facebook. You could look into. There you go. All right. Thanks, Greg. Thanks to all of you. Thanks for the super chat is thanks K facts. Sorry, we couldn't fulfill your, your wish. I guess I owe you some free super chat answers. And I guess I left out a guitarist people were asking favorite guitarist. So maybe in lieu of playing, I'll just mention one or two others. I really like periods of music when new things are coming together that happened before. And one of the periods I like a lot is the period when sort of white kids in Chicago were getting into the black blues music that was being played in the clubs and they started to be this kind of integration and cross pollination and one person to come out of that that I really like is Mike Bloomfield, the guitar player, and particularly is playing on the first two Butterfield blues band albums. So if you look at the Paul Butterfield blues band, the album is called the Paul Butterfield blues band in the album East West. I really like the guitar playing. So if you can't hear me, you could hear him. He's a lot better at the same broad genre of stuff I play. Thank you, Greg. This is a real pleasure. And thank you guys for all the super chat questions and for being here. And I will be back sometime tomorrow. I don't know what time tomorrow is the crazy day, but I will be doing a news roundup at some point tomorrow and then over the weekend we'll have some additional shows. Have a great night. It's late over here already. Have a good night. Greg, I'll see you soon. I guess in a couple of months. And I'll see you all of you guys tomorrow. Bye everybody.