 The radical, fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights. This is the Iran Book Show. All right, everybody. Welcome to Iran Book Show on this Saturday afternoon in Puerto Rico. I hope everybody's having a great weekend, ready to have the rest of great weekend and then a great week. Today we're doing our Ask Me Anything show, and we've got our panelists here, contributors who do $25 or more a month. They're eligible to participate live. But of course, all of you on the chat can still ask questions. The super chat is open and available. Let's see. What did I mention before we get going, two quick things. We got two sponsors of the show. One is expressvpn.com, and you can, if you sign up, expressvpn.com slash Iran, you get three months extra free on ExpressVPN. I use ExpressVPN when I travel, sometimes when I do financial transactions or when I want to see sling and I'm in another country. If I want to see my TV. 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I think I'm going to institute is going to create a whole page of special offers for YBS listeners so stay tuned with discounts and different things and and encourage you to participate in different things but you can get you'll be able to get free books. I will keep working on that. Hopefully that'll happen soon. Of course, if you're going to Ocon, let me know some of you I know applied for scholarships. I think some of you were approved you should be hearing from there and an institute about the scholarships. I was not involved I just passed on the scholarships to them but I think a few of you were already approved. I don't think there's any more scholarships to be had. But if you are going to Ocon and you're going to be there, then we'll probably do like a you're on book show get together during the conference so please come to Ocon. It'll be a lot of fun. It'll be a blast. I would pay I would pay money to have you on book yell at me in real time easy sign up for the sign up for the course on public speaking I promise. I pretty much yell at everybody but I promise to yell at you in particular and make a particular effort to be yelling at you. So the way we do this is a panel gets to ask questions and then we go to the super chat questions. We do have a usual goal of raising $650. So if you want to help the show if you want to support the show. This is great time to do it both by asking questions and by just using a sticker to support the show. This is such a thing as stickers in YouTube. Also just to add to the complexity of everything tomorrow. I'll be doing a members only show. 2pm East. No, 1pm East Coast time. Tomorrow 1pm East Coast time I was going to do a 12pm East Coast time but I felt sorry for the West Coasters didn't want to do too early on a Sunday morning so 1pm East Coast time. We will be doing a we'll be doing a members only show that topic of the show is your own state of the union so I'm going to be giving you my if I were president. What would be my state of the union address what would be the legislation I would be proposing will be my identification of the issues and problems and challenges facing the United States. So be all political it'll be pure fantasy pure fantasy and it'll be a lot of fun so so join us and if you're not a member yet I see a few people in the chat who are not members yet I'm not sure what the issue is but I think I'm a member pretty easily by clicking the join button there and committing to something like five bucks a month and you can become a member and if you do it now you can you can join us tomorrow for the members only show. I think I see we have a full slate of people here so let's get started. Just, I'm going to do this based on how you guys up here on my screen will start with Adam. Adam you muted. Adam, Adam, Adam. Right, we'll come back to you Adam how about that. Okay, I'm sorry. I'm partially disabled and I need to use a trackball to get to the unmute button. So sorry about the delay. I was looking up something. But my first, the first thing I want to say is yes I'm coming to Okan. Excellent. And since we met at the National Gallery in Washington. I know that you are also interested in sculpture and on my way to Okan I'm going to spend three days going through Brook Green Gardens. I don't know whether you know it. Yeah, of course I know it. I've been to Brook Green Gardens one to at least four times. I think four times. It is, it is one of the most beautiful places on planet Earth. It is in South Carolina just north of it's about an hour drive north of Charleston, South Carolina. It is a former plantation that in the late 19th century was converted into a sculpture studio and sculpture garden for the wife of Huntington and Huntington who was an American industrialist, one of the richest people in America. He bought this foundation. His wife, if plantation his wife was a sculptor, a very good sculptor. You'll see a number of her sculptures there at Brook Green Gardens. And she basically made it a sculpture garden for American sculptors. So almost all the sculptures there are American, many of them immigrants but Americans. And so you see their sculptures by sculptors you've never heard of. You've you know you didn't you didn't know of because they're not in other other museums, but what makes it special is that the sculptures are laid out in the gardens of the plantation. So it's a beautiful garden. So even if there was no sculptures there would be a beautiful place to go to because of the gardens. And then you put in sculptures into it and it's just magnificent a little ponds and the magnificent sculptures on the greens and there are over 400 sculptures at Brook Green Gardens at least as of a few years ago. Let's say three quarters of them are good. A certain percentage them are excellent. And, and just the setting and the atmosphere and the, the whole thing is beautiful take your time do it slowly. If I don't know if this is available in in the spring, but if by chance, the gardens available at night open at night in the dark. Definitely go. So we by accident once we were booking gardens over New Year's, and they did a night thing at, you know, one evening. And it was stunning. If they, you know, if there's a legitimate concept called magical. And I probably is. It was magical. It just the, the lighting on the sculptures, the trees, the shrubbery, the gardens, the atmosphere at night was, you know, it was just a unique experience. It was one of one of my most striking aesthetic experience I've ever had was booking Brook Green Gardens at night. But booking gardens generally amazing. I've been there again, three or four times. I can't remember. But yes, first time I was there was was 19 was 1989. That was the first time I was there. Anyway, yes. So that's wonderful item. Enjoy. You can have a blast. Thank you. And I wait on the other two questions until other people have been asking theirs. Sounds good. All right, Richard. Nice to see you, Richard. I think this is your first time on. Yeah, it's great to be on. But yeah, I was just getting curious about your take on this. I'm working as part of one of the classes I'm taking this semester. We're not working with any classified Intel, but basically the project that we're given is to present to the DoD presentation about some issue that they're concerned with. And one that they gave our group was supply chains and specifically supply chain resiliency. So that was really helpful for the microelectronics section having red chip wars. But it seems to me very obvious as you covered on the show, the biggest issues here are regulatory ones, immigration is one. There's a lot of processing facilities that are actually built in the United States, but they can't operate yet because they don't have the requisite permits from all the environmental zars. So in terms of framing this to a defense minded audience, how would you recommend framing it in a way that's conducive to like, this is a national security imperative and here's why you guys need to care about this. Well, I mean, there are a lot of ways in which to approach the whole issue of more resilient supply chains. But first, in terms of national security, I mean, the thing is that these are real, assuming these are real national security issues, right? And the bad thing is, there's so many things framed in terms of national security that have nothing to do with national security like tariffs on steel or tariffs on automobiles. I mean, the fact that we're buying BMWs supposedly, according to Trump was a national security threat to America. So assuming it's a real national security issues, I know chips from missiles, steel for building tanks, the capacity to build tanks. So the first thing is when the time comes to do this, when war comes, particularly in the 21st century, it might happen so quickly that you won't have time then to ask permission for all the regulatory and all the BS stuff that is that is bought on or restricting your ability to do anything today. So get it done in advance. Now's the time, the faster you do it, the better. Human life's at stake, whatever regulatory environmental stuff they might pull at you in terms of, oh, it'll poison this, it'll do that. It's irrelevant in the face of potential deaths of millions and millions of people in an actual war in a kind of national security emergency. So that's the first thing. Second thing is, then you have to identify, okay, what are the real risks in terms of supply chains? Because the fact is stuff can get very quickly to the United States very quickly from a lot of places around the world. And you don't actually have to manufacture everything in the US. The question is, what are the national security issues? One is you don't want to be dependent on a country that you might be at war with, China, Russia, and you would have to have a whole list of countries that you fear you might be at war with. So things that are national security issues should not be made in those countries. And again, you have to be very careful in making sure that what you're dealing with is real national security. Second, are there risks of things that are national security dependent are made far away? Can the planes and the ships bringing them to the United States be destroyed? Are they at risk? And to what extent is that risk serious? Is that a serious risk? If it is, then bring them closer. So for example, Canada is a great place to outsource certain national security things. I don't know what the Canadians are particularly good at, but whatever it is that they can compete with Americans at, they, you know, we shouldn't have any national security concerns about building stuff in Canada. So do we have national security concerns about Mexico? I think more than Canada, less than a lot of other places, right? Because they're close. We could always invade, right? And get the stuff by force if we needed to. But you can imagine a scenario where Mexico is aligned with one of our enemies. Canada, very unlikely. Mexico, maybe likely. But I think it's a low probability, right? And then you could rank countries based on stuff like that. And the risk of Mexico getting things leaked is probably higher. Their cybersecurity might not be as sophisticated as Canada or behind it. Sure. So, but again, you could provide at least a particular facilities. And then the question is, so there's a whole issue of a French shoring, which I like. I mean, make sure that things that you believe are national security dependent are being made by friends, by allies, by people you think will never go to war with us and are never going to be a national security threat. And then the second, the second issue is, but things that you think are crucial to be made in the United States and, you know, then, but that you're worried that we currently don't have the capacity or if we went to war, it would be too hard to ramp up capacity. Then build that capacity now use the defense budget to build that capacity. You could you could build it. You could you could give the money to private companies to build that capacity and mothball it. That is mothball it with a commitment to updated regularly to make it so it's state of the art constantly, but it should be mothballed it shouldn't be used for producing stuff that competes with everybody else it shouldn't be used for the, for private sector that should get no benefits it should be sitting they, they be in a sense that the defense department should pay private industry to build mothballed facilities for emergencies, like maybe a tank things and chip manufacturing and things like that. But they, you know, they shouldn't be used. And maybe with chips what you need to do because you need them on a ongoing basis I mentioned this the other day is you want to make sure that in the United States there is a plant that can supply the defense department with all the chips they need, no matter what. Any time, and given that the time to ramp up. It's very difficult given the technology ramp up. It's very difficult. Now luckily, most of the chip manufacturing technologies are with friends, Japan, Taiwan, the Netherlands, but imagine Taiwan there's a war in Taiwan Japan's be nuked. So you've got to have some capacity in the US. Again, maybe it's mothballed I suggest probably it's not mothballed they produce just for the defense department. That's what they do. And maybe it's owned by TSMC it doesn't have to be owned by an American company but it has to be based in the US. But real strategic thinking has to be going to what do we need how much of it do we need when do we need it what are the, what is supply chains how sensitive and how vulnerable are they. I mean, I suspect, unfortunately, that nobody in the defense department does this kind of strategic thinking, sadly, because they don't do it for anything else. It doesn't seem to be much strategy from policy wise in the US government. That's great. And it does seem like they're thinking about it at least going to try and they know it's an issue so an issue whether they can actually create strategy is a different question. Thanks. Sure. Stephen. So, I'm going to start with a statement and please correct me if my statements wrong so I ran viewed consciousness and existence as a duality. Am I correct. Yes. It exists in existence. Right. Consciousness isn't exist. All right. And the so in the, you know, new to objectivism coming from pseudo if you will Catholicism slash Buddhism, the, you know, the Buddhist application of this is that consciousness and existence. There's a non duality. It's a one. And so I think I'm correct with that statement. That said, how would an objectivist approach mindfulness mindfulness meditation and the the benefit I think that you get from a type of a mindfulness meditation meditation practice. Sure. So to the extent that I understand what mindfulness is and this might be an area in which I'm partially ignorant at least. I consider mindfulness a way of resting your consciousness, you know, resting your mind. Your mind is active all day. It is exerting huge amounts of energy. I mean, I forget the number but the percent that the percent of calories burned by the actual brain is astounding because it's busy and it's doing a lot of things. And, you know, sleep is is part of that is is an important part of resetting the brain and and and providing it with rest and and but I think mindfulness during the day can be a way of doing that reset of giving it a little bit of rest of giving an opportunity for your conscious mind. The whole point is to, in a sense, turn off your conscious mind, your conscious mind to rest up a little bit and to reset and to freshen up and so that afterwards it can be reengaged with the world because that's its job. Its job is to engage with existing to engage with reality. Does that make sense? Yes. Thank you. So the Chinese government has an account on LinkedIn and someone wrote, I don't think to them, but they answer this question that was asked somewhere. Why shouldn't we, and I think by we they mean the West, make China a democracy so the Chinese people have the option to peacefully elect their government every few years. And the Chinese government points out that if you go to Taiwan near Taipei station there are tramps what we would call homeless everywhere and this is this is terrible. They say Chinese vagrants are very lucky. The local government will help them homeless after finding help the homeless after finding them. If they are disabled they will send them back to their home counties, countries, if they are disabled, if they, they will find them a guardian to take care of them, if they're healthy they will train them to find a new job. And at the end they say the characteristic of a democratic country is that the government serves the people at the grassroots level. If your country serves the capitalist and the ruling class, then even if you have the right to vote, it is not a democratic country. What's your thoughts? I mean it's funny. More than anything else it's just funny. In China, you know I spent some time in China both both in the cities in Shanghai and Beijing but also out in the countryside. And they are very, very, very poor people in China. I mean, much poorer than anything you see in the West, in some ways much poorer than even I think some of the homeless in the United States are. So I don't think they have any one up on us in terms of how they were treated in China or in the West that's that's first. But second, you don't measure a system by how the weakest link within that system is treated that is an altruistic collectivistic and ultimately egalitarian. It rolls in way of measuring the quality of a system. At the end of the day one has to have a conception of what human life requires, what is required for successful human life for human beings to achieve and thrive. And, you know, when you actually look and we actually examine history and examine the world one of the things that is required is freedom. And, and to the extent that people lack freedom to extent that other people are making decisions for them to the extent that coercion can be applied to people at any point in time whenever. But to that extent, I think human war being is at a deficit human war being is being hurt. And to the extent people are left to make their own decisions based on their own values and yeah sometimes make mistakes and sometimes screw up but have the opportunity to help each other or not. And, and but live to that extent I think people people have the opportunity and do indeed flourish. And the consequence of that I think also related to wealth that is I also think those are kind of societies that are super wealthy. So I don't think voting necessarily is the most important feature of all that so people in the West have turned democracy into a God. And, and it's easy to criticize democracy I mean democracy put Socrates to death democracy does a lot of bad things, but the West is not dominated by democracy in spite of what the West says. It has a certain type of democracy, a restrained democracy democracy that does not allow the majority to get away with anything, you know, I don't think it's restrained enough I don't think it's restrained in the right way. But the West has a certain restrained democracy. And that's, that's what really struck me about the question if it had been asked in terms of install a government that protects the rights of individuals. It becomes a completely different question. Nobody, nobody talks about that nobody talks about individual rights so. So then the question is, you have these democratic governments in the West that are not perfect but far from perfect. And you have a Chinese government that is far from perfect. My guess is the West is still better, because we have more freedoms in the West, but it's just a marginal difference it's not a huge difference. You know, the West and China would like to present it as massive difference between the two systems. And it's not that big. So, so first, so so that's important. And of course the ideal system is a system of individual rights and this ideal system is one way individual rates are protected and where some things you vote on and most things you don't there is no democracy in the in the common sense. The whole way in which it's presented the whole way. It assumes a wall's in egalitarianism, and then assumes democracy is some kind of Western, and this is the West fault because it glorifies democracy, or makes democracy that the aim, whereas the aim should be liberty the aim should be individual rights, and in that sense the West is better than China. But China's not as bad as the Soviet Union was not as bad as Iran is today and as bad as North Korea probably not as bad as Russia is today. Because it's it's super. You know, because there's some economic freedoms there's some of the freedoms that are still that is still available, or in in China that are not in these other places so kind of. Because the are you do observe any change in the way that the new right talks about democracy. I know the left has always been enthusiastic about democracy and referring to America as a democracy. It doesn't really it doesn't really talk about democracy what it calls what it refers to is liberal democracy and that's the thing they hate. They hate liberal democracy, i.e. democracy that is based on a agenda of liberty. liberal in the classical liberal sense. What then you write once is kind of a post liberal order where there will be some role for democracy and they do care about the will of the people, but to a large extent from their perspective that will of the people is channeled through the rulers channeled through the the people in charge who know best, who understand best. Right. Thank you, Daniel, let's see. Jonathan. Hi, I'm here sorry you're on. Thank you. Thank you so much. Two quick things. First of all, I wanted just to reiterate and appreciate something you said a number of months ago now about how disappointing it is, in effect that today's conservative leaders never read or took Rand seriously. It's just such a sex pool there, complete absence of any type of ideas or thought and the fact that you know they just have never. It's just so apparent that Rand is just not Rand's ideas are not on their menu at all. Yes, absolutely and that's true unfortunately, you know conservatives but it's also true in terms of taking her seriously of libertarians. Here's my question question though it's a little bit lighter. My theory is that do you like surprise parties. My feeling is no one likes surprise parties it's almost like a violation of your rights, you know it's deception, you are expecting a quiet night at home, you know your dress maybe you know relaxed you're not up and all of a sudden, this has been what the hell. And now you've got to be entertaining you so I just I find it to be like I don't know violation of one's rights, but it's deception. And what do you think about surprise parties does anyone really like them. Um, I don't think so I don't like them but then nobody's ever given me a surprise party so who knows maybe maybe I would like them if they give it to me. I don't think so I like to have at least some prep in terms of whatever I'm going to do I like to, I like to be in in get myself in the right mood the right context the right. And I think that applies to parties like everything else so I don't like people's just knocking on my door and just showing up, which is, you know, one reason I left Israel because they tend to do that. I don't think I like surprise parties I, you know, mild surprises where you expecting a like like presents that you don't know what they are. You know that's fine because you know there's a present coming you just don't know what it is. You know if it doesn't involve too much energy and too much changes then yeah, but so I agree with you I don't think I don't think anybody very few people like surprise parties. Quick quick quick follow up. If you were invited to go to someone's surprise party to be a guest. Would you not go because you wouldn't want to make that person you wouldn't want to be a part of that. I would ask the person who was organizing it, whether it was whether they thought the person would enjoy it because I can't rule out the fact the idea that somebody might like surprise parties. And so I would ask the person who knew maybe this person better, whether they thought this was, this was okay. Thank you for the response. I wouldn't just assume that. Thanks again. Alright friend hopper. Hey, just real quick on what you and Jonathan we're just talking about because I put a lot of brainpower to friendship stuff is that I think it's healthy to try to observe your friends to see if they would appreciate it or not before you decide to try it. Definitely, definitely. Yep, yep. And then also I wanted to shout out you two because I'm listening to Jonathan honing audio book version of guidebook to Americanism or excellence excellence. Yeah. Well thank you so much your own is actually obviously featured in there obviously miss well thank you so much. It's an excellent book and very much needed these days. Eight hours of Jonathan honing and talking to me. Oh yeah. But, so, folks you get from, you know, from the Iran book show. Oh yeah. Alright so on to my question. So, last time I was on here, I asked about friendship is a central purpose we brought up. Monetize it make a living off it a little bit. And so I started putting down notes for like an outline expanding on a book kind of stuff, and I wanted to bounce a little bit of it off you to get some thoughts if you wouldn't mind. Alright, so I have three foundational principles for building healthy friendships. So these are before the before friendship comes up how to set yourself up for success in the friendship game. So the first one is independence, and I kind of have these. I'm, I'm trying to formulate the book for general audience, but so I kind of have a caveat of like I'm an objectivist but here's what I think these terms mean in the context of friendship so independence is being self reliance and not needing your friends to support you and sustain you. And then there's, I put a little caveat for like the emergency clause, because that can happen. Individualism is everyone represents themselves and basically how you hold accountability. And then I have boundaries which is the limits of your voluntary action and then I also put it's healthy to talk about these things explicitly with people. And that's it just wondering if you had any. The second one independence. Individualism, so everyone represents themselves and it's kind of where you would think about accountability. Yep. And then boundaries which would be like limits of voluntary action. I don't think boundaries falls under independence. You don't think it's an aspect of independence. Yeah, I see where you're coming from. I mean, you want to have something so you know think about that but you want to have something, something on, you know the trader principles you want to have something on the kind of value for value win win nature of any friendship relationship and what that means. So, and then, so you want to come out French from the perspective of a trader. Not from a perspective of a take off or just a giver which which some people do but from from a real perspective of spiritual trade visibility and if it's going to be psychological visibility then it has to be mutual psychological visibility. So, and, you know, and, and, yeah, so that would be that to me is is essential for friendship is this idea of, I'm getting something from you that is really valuable and you know only going to be friends if you're going to get something from me as well. Yeah, awesome. That's, that's a lot to work with I like the mutual visibility part I didn't really think of that explicitly. Alrighty, well thanks. Boundaries would be part of individualism and independence. It's just an aspect of the two I mean an individual, somebody is independent doesn't cross bound you own individuals wouldn't cross those boundaries and would would expect his friends not to cross the boundaries with him. It kind of, you know, when you put it like that it kind of reminds me of the, the existence consciousness identity axiom, but the relationship between those ones but yeah, awesome. Thank you. Excellent. Thanks, and hop. Let's see who doing miss Andrew. Hello. Yeah. Hey. You know the way you describe Israel you're wrong. I think Larry David should do another season of curb your enthusiasm in Israel. It's too easy whole new set of cultural norms to go after human human Israel is a big deal. Israeli comedians are some of the best in the world. We skit comedy the Saturday night version night version of, of comedy in Israel is off the charts good. They make fun of politicians politicians in the US wouldn't know what to do with themselves. They would they would go bury themselves somewhere. If anybody did make fun of them nobody makes fun of politicians like they do in Israel in Israel they go after everybody and they go after religion they go after the ultra orthodox Jews they make fun of almost every night. I mean every show on these on these skit shows. I mean if you went after Christians like that on a, on a, on a national broadcast TV show. They would freak out they'd be a revolution in this country I'm telling you that you know, Jews, you know Jews in Israel are very very good at making fun of stuff that deserves to make fun you should have seen the picture that they had. It was terrific during lockdowns this one comedian used to do a daily skit from his from his bathtub because that was his office because you couldn't leave the home. And it was, and he would go over the new regulations as they came out. And he would do this, this long thing of the regulations can leave your house unless this happens and if you leave the house and you can go this far but unless this other thing you can go over there. And, and you can get it you can get a vaccine if you're this age unless you have this condition, you know and then he would do this but he would do this regularly, kind of an update on what's going on COVID, making fun of everything, you know, you would you have no clue left or right he was making fun of everybody, every attitude. It was. Yeah I mean to this day, my wife, and my wife watches calm, you know this stuff from Israel that's how I know the news from Israel. It's from these comedians so don't count on me being too objective about no I'm, but it's, it's, it's so we watch a lot of that and it's super funny and it was funny when I was a kid. There was always this strong human a strong sense of making fun of kind of these cultural attitudes in Israel and I'm sure they'd be skits about the relatives to just show up. Because it happens all the time. Relatives you know. What about in the same generation. Well, then let me ask an Israel oriented question because you did you did answer this, but maybe to expound on it I heard Netanyahu talking about the legislation that will curb the judiciary in Israel. And he was speaking in very pro free market terms. Oh, he was talking to Larry Kudlow in the interview. He was he was on a, he was on an American show we were speaking English, and he was talking to Larry Kudlow is a very pro free market guy. Yeah, so you're not, you're not buying it. Oh no, of course not free market. I don't buy anything Netanyahu says in English. As a principle, he everything he says in English is generally a lie. Put on to convince his audience in the United States, he might even believe what he says in English, but he never does what he says in English, but he never does it. Look, the Israeli judiciary was about how the judiciary is holding back the economy and the regulations are holding back the economy is Benjamin Netanyahu. He's been holding back economy for over 10 years now. He has not when he was finance minister, he was actually really good and for some reason, the judiciary didn't block all his reforms when he was finance minister they all went through. But since he's become prime minister, they have been no free market reforms in Israel. There were plenty as finance minister zero as a prime minister and that's all because the economy is just one more lever for that he uses for power. And he cares nothing for now granted that given that judiciary needs to be reformed in Israel. There are real problems with the judiciary in Israel, it is, it is a self perpetuating leftist machine. And then the question is how do you reform the judiciary and Israel needs that reform but Netanyahu is not going to be the guy to do it well. And he's not the guy who was going to do it in a way that the Israeli public believes because remember, it's very, very important that people believe that you have the rule of law in your country. So if you're going to have judicial judicial reform, you have to sell it and you have to make it, you have to provide people with confidence that some objectivity around it. Very difficult to do when Israel doesn't have a constitution to have judicial reform that's good. You know, you could have election for judges, which is kind of the American system but that has its own corruption involved in it. Judges could be appointed by politicians but how, you know, it's, it's, it's a tricky proposition, which I don't think because of where Netanyahu is and because of the kind of coalition he has formed. I don't think he is in a position to do it and what he does will be any good. But the main thing that they want to change the judiciary for is not economical form. The main thing they want to change the judiciary for is I believe to give them more power to violate the property rights of Arabs in Israel and of Arabs in the West Bank. If you look at his coalition, his coalition is not about property rights. It's not about free markets. It's about Jewish supremacy. It's about nationalism. It's about doing whatever they can to suppress and oppress the Arab population. Now, certain things need to be done because, because there's terrorism and there's violence and so on. But you don't, but I don't think they care when I order or most of them don't care when I order about economic liberty. That's not what's driving this. I mean, Netanyahu again gives a good talk, but I would have never realized that if you didn't explain it because, you know, he makes it sound so convincing. He even knows how to, he knows how to play to his, one of his, his points in the interview was about how it's about separation of powers and the judiciary and the legislative and the executive branch and aggregating the proper powers to the proper branch. You know, he knows how to even go after foundational American ideals. He knows how to appeal to Americans. He has mastered that skill for 30 years. He was what was the ambassador to the United States of the U.N. But anyway, he, he mastered that skill. He's a very smart guy. He went to MIT. But he is not a champion of liberty, a champion of freedom or champion of free markets at all. Never. I mean, he was, but he's not anymore and not in his role as prime minister. He is a how a lusting narcissist to who will hold on to power at all costs and will cut deals and cut coalitions with anybody who will give him the ability to be, to be in power. And, you know, he comes from an amazing family. I like his brothers. I know one of his brothers who's a playwright, who's a really nice guy. I know his nephew, his nephew actually Netanyahu's nephew actually is the guy who often videotapes my talks in Israel. So he's, you know, the whole family, I ran fans, including Netanyahu. But, but the real hero of the family was his, his brother, Yoni, who died in Ntebe the only Israeli casualty in Ntebe was the commanding officer of the Ntebe raid, which was Yoni Netanyahu. It was BB's brother, Yoni was the guy who got the brothers to read at the shrugged. Yoni was, was, you know, by, by most accounts that I've seen the best of them, the most principled of them. BB was in, I think at MIT when the Ntebe raid happened. So, but Yoni was there was the command of Israeli special forces and was on the ground as the command of special forces on the ground in Uganda for the raid, and took a sniper bullet. You learn all kinds of cool history facts in the Iran Book Show. All right, let's see. We'll go to the super chat. We'll do the $320 questions. And then we'll go back to our panel. Marilyn says, What do you think of Israeli Netflix series Fouda? I'm hooked, but I can't watch it at bedtime. I talked about Fouda many, many times in the Iran Book Show, Marilyn. I love the show. It is completely addictive. It is the kind of show you have to binge watch. You know, it's, it's, and what makes it addictive is that it, it is super dramatic. It is, it just, it just ramps up the drama and, and the twists and the turns are always the drama is always at 11, right out of 10. And so, so it's always a cliffhanger. You always want to watch the next episode. They're not very long. They're less than an hour, sometimes like 40 minutes. And it just, it's easy to watch them in a row, but it's very, very, very well done. Now, often like in the last season, they're big plot holes. And if you understand a little bit of geography of the area and stuff like particularly in the last season, and none of it makes any sense. I mean, it's just some of it is just stupid. But it doesn't matter because it's about the action and about the drama and about the people and you, you learn to care about the people. It's very, very good at characterization at characters, at building characters, at you caring about the characters, and then, and then elevating the drama. So, you know, the Israeli head guy is always falling in love with some Arab woman, right? He's always falling for them. So in the first season, it was the first or second season was a Palestinian doctor in the first season. It is an Israeli Arab police woman. But it, and that, of course, makes the drama all the more intense because it makes it personal. So it's very effective. The relationship between the team and the superiors, it's very, very well done. It's very well written. Again, the plot's a little far fetched. Again, particularly in this last season. But action, it's nonstop and you care. Whereas most action that I watch, I don't care. They could all blow up. The good guys could blow up. The bad guys could blow up. Who cares if they all die? It would make no difference. But here, you actually care about them. And it's also pretty good about showing, and this is a more naturalistic element of it. It is good at showing you the cost of living a double life. And I think it's a real cost. You see that also in that Netflix show called The Spy about Eli Cohen, the Israeli spy. There's a massive cost about living a dual life, about, you know, in a sense, lying to people for a living and placing your life at risk constantly, placing love to people you care about at risk constantly. There's a real cost for being a warrior like that, or the particular kind of warrior. And the show is very good at showing you that cost and that the heroes in spite of that, right? They don't let it destroy them completely. And that's the romantic element on top of kind of the more naturalistic side of it. Thank you, Marilyn. And I'm glad you enjoy it. And yeah, all four seasons are worth watching for those of you haven't watched it yet. It's on Netflix. Papa Campbell. We generally associate nihilism as being a left wing phenomena, but I've encountered a ton of young fascist nihilist types in right wing circles. Are they just copying the left or were they always there? I mean, look, they're always there. There's definitely a nihilism of the right. You know, I suggested, I think when Trump was president, part of the problem was that he had a real strong nihilistic streak to him. And suddenly he kind of reinforced the nihilism in a lot of young people. But you know, the new racists, the white nationalists, there's a strong nihilistic element there. There's a strong element. This is not motivated from love. This is motivated from hate. This is not motivated from a true belief in some amazing white people. This is just hatred, right? This is just hatred of the other. And that's a, and they're willing to be poorer. They're willing to be poorer, you know, but surrounded by people the same skin color, which again is a destructive kind of nihilistic sense. So it's fear and hatred. But there is, I think it also attracts certain nihilists. They just want to watch it burn. There's some people, and I'd say this whole attitude around the left, the whole attitude that says, as long as it's bad for the left, we're for it. There's a fundamental nihilism there. Because even if it's destructive to yourself, as long as the left suffers more, it's okay. The whole country will burn down. As long as the left is destroyed, it's okay. We'll have a third chance in a right takeover of America. As long as the left's destroyed, it's okay, right? That attitude has elements of real wanting to see destruction for the sake of destruction. Nihilism is a consequence of a lack of rational ideals, and it's not surprising that as the culture is more and more removed from the founding principles, more and more removed from the enlightenment principles, it becomes more and more nihilistic, both on left and right. It abandons the sources of rational values. Okay, James, is narcissism just a childhood coping mechanism run amuck? Narcissism appears to be a powerful motivator for trying to achieve success and status. Would you say many successful CEOs are narcissistic to some degree? No, I mean, no, no, I don't think narcissism exists in childhood. I don't think children are narcissistic at all. I mean, how do you separate the idea of, I think children are self-interested. I think children are self-focused, self-motivated. But narcissism is a view that the world revolves around you. But more importantly, it's the view that your worth, your self-esteem, your value, what and who you are comes from the judgment of other people. It's an essential characteristic of people with low self-esteem. And while certain CEOs have this, I think the most successful do not because I think you have to have immense self-esteem to really be successful, particularly over long periods of time and in complex diverse industries. And I think that narcissism is something that only in certain types of industries could work. Industries where a lot of it evokes sales and marketing versus actually building and building sophisticated complex things. So I think narcissism, I don't think a lot of CEOs and I certainly don't think children are narcissists. I certainly don't think that is the case. All right, let's go back to our panel and you're in a different order now, so on my screen. So we'll start with Daniel. So the fact sheet on Biden's tax on billionaires contains this little gym, or at least what I think is a gym. Quote, President Biden is a capitalist and believes anyone should be able to become a millionaire or billionaire. He also believes that is wrong for America to have a tax code. The results of America's wealthiest households paying a lower rate tax than working families. I mean, you know, the first obvious thing is why should it be a rate? Like if you go to the grocery store and buy a loaf of bread, should the price be based on percentage of your income? The other thing is he doesn't talk at all about government spending and he doesn't talk about individual rights. I mean, is this a guy on the street or is this the president of the United States? What's going on here? Well, nobody talks about it. I mean, it's a sense in which it's not fair to single out Biden, right? No, it's not a single politician up there talks about individual rights, never does. If Trump ever talked about a bushel, there's no such thing as individual rights in their minds. They can't hold it. It doesn't integrate. So there's no conception of that. It is true that Biden realizes, Biden is turning out to be, I think, a moderately smarter politician than I thought he was. And he realizes that the agenda of Bernie Sanders and the agenda of AOC and the agenda of the Antifa and the violent egalitarian nihilistic left is not an agenda that can win you elections. And so he has committed himself to appealing where he can to what he thinks the American people actually think. And the American people generally still believe that you should be able to become rich. You should be able to, if you work hard and are successful, that's a good thing. And he appeals to that and capitalism is still viewed positively by Americans, certainly more than it. Listen, including by the way, Elizabeth Warren, which is the most stunning of all of them, right? Elizabeth Warren, who is an out and out fascist, often says, I'm a capitalist, I'm a capitalist. So he's playing to his audience. I also think to the extent he kind of believes that, you know, inside whatever there is that goes for a brain that Biden has, there's some kind of mushy conception of capitalism is where people, you know, get to spend their money at the mall and whatever they want. We don't tell them and generally we don't tell stores what they can or cannot store up to a point and people can make more money than other people. And there's no definition. They couldn't come up with one. There's no conception of it. And then there is this other idea which Obama was very good at. I mean, Obama is a real intellectualist compared to any president really, maybe in a very long time. And Obama's, I think, his most important speech and the one that was the most evil, but the most important was the, you didn't build that speech. We basically said, look, yes, you know, you people should be able to become billionaires and millionaires. But you have to realize that you didn't build that and that if you didn't build that, then you, then other people did and we as a society did we made it possible we made it possible for you to be successful. And because of that, you owe something back and because of that, that's the claim we have against you in terms of higher rates for you versus everybody else. You know, without the roads without the this without the that all the bullshit that he said, right, some of it was just ridiculous but without government funding of science they go this is the most sophisticated ones. There is no technology technology industry is built and government funded science. Are they completely wrong. No, can they imagine alternative way government doesn't fund science like we can. No, so but but if you draw a line, yes, government science did fund many of the inventions that created this therefore what therefore in their mind in their ridiculous rationalization. These billionaires owe money back so they create these rationalizations and for 99% of the people out there. It all kind of makes sense. I mean, if you listen to critiques for Biden's speech from Republicans. It's not fundamental. There's no principled objection. It's just, you know, ridiculous stuff he lied he did this he did that. Well, yeah, they all lie who doesn't lie in politics but but it's it's it's their fundamental individual right based critique of Biden speech and even on the spending side everyone agrees that spending is too much, but no one's going to do anything about it and back when there was a tea party. They said hey let's cut whatever was 200 billion and people are like oh my God they're going to be, you know, dying babies in the street if we cut 200 billion out of the $2 trillion increase we just had. And also as I point out the day about how I thought Biden actually caught the Republicans and won up them because he basically said Republicans want to cut your Medicaid so security. And instead of Republicans saying yeah, we need to we need to reform entitlements this is, you know, this is essential at least reform them, if not do it with them. Instead of saying that they said no no no we don't want to cut anything he said oh see don't want to cut them. Okay, so I commit we're not going to cut tight and Republicans stood up and gave him a standing ovation. Unbelievable the state of the Republican Party today, and this is the opposition party. So I agree with you completely nobody is serious about spending. The Democrats have modern monetary theory as a theory why they should not cut spending. Republicans just want to cut spending when Democrats in power, and they don't want to cut spending when they're in power. And now it was, I mean we see it right they negotiated a pretty good deal with Obama to kind of at least cap spending, and for six years, government didn't grow as a percent of GDP because of that. Soon as they got the House of Senate and the presidency spending took off the cap was gone spending took off and as soon as Biden now wants to raise the debt limit, which every president has done from the beginning of time right. And they know we want to cut spending they discover that they want to cut spending again. It's all politics. It's all. It has nothing to do with any kind of absolute principle or beliefs or, or, but you know wanting a free market or anything like that. Thank you. All right, Stephen. I don't have any other questions. Thank you so much. Thanks, Stephen. Let's see Andrew. How do we argue against the what I would say is like an argument from moderation or compromise in the sense of, for example, in the context of socialized medicine, you know, I don't think it is effective to argue like, well, everything other than a capitalist, laissez-faire capitalist system is a hellhole. You know, it's just doesn't it doesn't match people's experiences and so it lacks credibility. And we can point to concrete negative effects of socialized systems that are like quasi socialized. It also doesn't feel like it has any to it, you know, like I want to argue with a real clear laissez-faire kind of argument but that does scare people because it's strong and they would prefer to stay in the middle and moderate and say, well, we'd like, like you mentioned about Elizabeth Warren labeling their self a capitalist, they want to be capitalist, but with the guardrail so on and so forth. That really means kind of a quasi socialist system. How do we argue? How do we, how do we frame it so that we're arguing? I think we have to frame it in terms of principles. We have to frame it in terms of individual rights. We have to frame it in terms of human flourishing and individual happiness and what's required. If you start getting into political debates, then why not a little bit of safeguard? Why not a little bit? So people are taxed, so what? A little bit of money is taken from them. But you know, you have to be able to make the case that there's a principle here. Once you violate a principle, you have done something deeply immoral and unjust. And once you've done that, then it's also, I'm a big believer in slippy slopes. I know people don't like slippy slopes, but slippy slopes exist. If you start with a tax rate of 7% as we did when the first income tax was passed, where 95% of Americans I think didn't even pay anything. Just 5% paid the highest rate was 7%. Within four years, five years, pretty much all Americans were paying income tax and the top marginal tax rate was well over 50%. You know, that's the way it is. Once you violate a principle, there's no end to it. Then there's, you know, let's have a little bit of a safeguard. But what about those people who are not in the safeguard and they're kind of on the edge? Well, let's expand it a little bit. And what about those people who now are on the edge and not in the safeguard? Well, let's expand it a little bit and there's no end to it. And that's how you get the kind of monstrosity that is the US welfare state today. Which is the worst. In many respects, the American welfare state is worse than European welfare states because Europeans went all in from the beginning. And they said, okay, we're going to subsidize all of this. And it was a package and it was neatly framed and it was all done once and a bureaucracy set up to do this. And in America, we don't want to do all that. So we said, let's subsidize a little bit here. Oh, but what about these people? Okay, we'll give this other special benefit. What about that? We'll give them another special benefit. And each special benefit says its own bureaucracy. Each special benefit has its own mechanism and it just grows and it grows out of control. So the European welfare state is far more efficient than our welfare state partially because ours is piecemeal. And the piecemeal comes from the fact that there's something in the Americans who resist the welfare state to begin with. We're trying to sneak it up on them. We're trying to go down the slippery slope, whereas the Europeans just embraced it and just did it. And in a sense, that's more efficient economically to do it that way. It's why a healthcare system is so expensive, right? Because we don't want to be, we don't want socialized medicine. We want a little bit of socialized medicine and maybe a little bit more, maybe just for old people and poor people and uninsured people and maybe you can think of it a few other people. And so we get this weird, completely rational and difficult to maneuver hybrid system that just doesn't make any sense. At least Europeans, it's simple, it's straightforward. You know, exactly what the cost is. You know, people die and it's not as good as the system most Americans have, but you know that's okay because it's at least knowable and doable and within the scope. You have to reject it all or not at all. And speak in terms of principles. Yes, always principles. Yes. Got it. Hey, so this one's going to be another friendship flavored question or another pick your pick your brain about it. So I heard I read in a comic book once a formulation that kind of describes the difference between friendship and romance. But so it's in like a flowery type of way of explaining it and I was trying to figure out how to talk about it explicitly but the quote was something like a friend or friendship and romance have in common. The feeling of desiring closeness with that person, but the difference is friendship is about grounding them and romance is about sweeping them off their feet. And I'm, I was trying to figure out how to formulate that without it, like, basically describing what that kind of means. I think it's too description is too grounded in emotion. And so it's too subjective. It doesn't grounded in values you have to ground friendship and values and you have to, and you have to, and then love is a different category of values type of values level of values. And you have to ground it in psychological visibility and you have to ground it in, in the relationship. And you, you can't just ground it in the emotional level sweep some somebody off their feet is not a, you know, what does that actually mean so it descriptive it's nice it's in emotional descriptive but if you're actually thinking about friendship and thinking about love, you have to be able to put it in terms that are value oriented and in terms that are reason based, not, not primarily, primarily emotional. Yeah, that's, I was just saying that I didn't say it a vocal emotion. Yeah, I was, I was just going to say that that quote always resonated with me, but I was trying to figure out kind of like why because Yeah, I mean, I kind of Yeah, the way I kind of think about being a good friend is being part of it's being somebody who does not cause people anxiety, which involves communicating clearly and explicitly talking about certain things and I think that can help ground somebody in that like there, you can make them less anxious, or help ground their feelings to to reality. But romance is kind of foreign to me because I haven't gotten to it till I was like 30 basically. But, and I don't really understand what sweeps people off their feet, even though that's a thing I've like a bromide I've heard before. Oh, and it's true. I mean, romance is about intense emotion and that's what sweeping off the feet means. Oh, okay. High degree, high intensity of emotions. Oh, okay. That makes sense. Oh anyway. All right, thank you. Thanks, Adam. Okay, my second question has to do with the median equivalent adult income is calculated by OECD. Now, I've had a big problem with estimating how well the country is by just dividing the gross domestic product by the population or the number of households. Because first of all, you can only spend the part of the GDP that comes to you if the government doesn't take it first. So you should subtract government spending from the gross domestic product. Now, they don't actually subtract the entire government spending but they do subtract taxes and all compulsory payments, which is definitely most of it. Also, all the other government interferences in the market, such as tariffs, corruption, regulations are reflected in the cost of living, and they do put the cost of living in the denominator. I think PPP is not the best way to calculate the cost of living. I think the CIA world handbook methodology for cost of living is much sounder, but at least they come close to doing it the right way. And it's very interesting to look at the results and realize that, for example, China despite its enormous progress is still among the OECD members because unfortunately it's only a quarter of the world, the second poorest after India. No, I think that's absolutely right all of that. So Adam is looking at Wikipedia page, which is under medium income, medium income, and it's got an interesting chart there. And what you see, I mean, some of the interesting things that come out of this is that the United States has a very high median income much higher than most European countries. If you're interested, the U.K., so the United States median income is $46,625. This is purchase parity, power parity adjusted. The U.K. is, in this thing is $25,500. So the Brits are significantly poorer than Americans. Where's Japan on this list? Somebody was just asking, somebody said something about Japan. Japan is 21,697. So Japanese are 50% poorer than Americans. And this is a fact. You can see this in going to Japanese homes, how small they are, and in other things that Japanese consume consumption in Japan is a lot poorer. Now, they do have sushi that raises the standard of living quality of life dramatically, but good sushi, not just any sushi. But in terms of actual income, they are quite poor. And if you look down at the bottom, there's China and India, India half of China. But Russia is 16,163. That's a third of, you know, basically a third of what the United States is. They are, you know, two-thirds poorer. It's actually a really interesting chart when you look at Germany that's quite a bit poorer than the U.S., Sweden that everybody admires so much. I mean, the only countries that are close to the U.S. are Luxembourg and Norway. And Luxembourg is just a tiny little country that everybody does their banking there because they have banking privacy laws. And Norway has oil, which basically is a way in which everything is subsidized over there. But Canada is the first country, Canada and Switzerland are the first real countries, if you will, that even approach the U.S. and the U.S. is significantly richer. And if you add to that fact, yeah, so in spite of us coming down on the U.S. and criticizing the U.S. and the U.S. is still, from a financial perspective, and in terms of what you can do with those dollars, the richest country in the world, the richest big country in the world. Sure, Dubai might be richer, but I don't count that as a country. One comment, which is that Japan has a government planning model for the finance industry and to some extent for the whole economy, whereas South Korea, which used to be part of a Japanese colony, is now way ahead of them. Yes, I think that's right. I think the Koreans have gone past the Japanese because they have a lot. Now Korea also has problems and they also have too much central planning. But Korea has, you know, standard of living in Korea significantly now higher than in Japan, which is, you know, it's by 50% higher. Once 21,000 and once 31,000. That's a huge difference. South Korea is quite a wealthy society. And that's amazing, given at the end of the Korean War, South Korea was poorer than North Korea. I'll talk more about what South Korea did right in order to get rich at some point. And I can also talk about what Japan did wrong to kind of stumble. Japan was on the right track in the 1980s. And then, and then since the 1980s basically has seen almost no income growth in Japan. All right, thank you, Adam. Okay, one more question, but I guess we're going to take turns. Yeah, if we'll get another round, if not the next time. Let's see, Richard. Yeah, I was actually kind of dovetailing with the Korean discussion. I've been thinking a lot about the Korean war and sort of the early Cold War and reading a lot about it. And Truman's thinking. And what he actually wrote in his diaries. First of all, he's so paid. And a lot of the decisions he makes with peace treaty with Japan are just, oh, I don't want MacArthur to be finished as governor general of Japan so I'm going to delay signing a peace treaty until after he can't run for president against me. But there's so much found up in this idea of let's build up. Let's put our troops all over the place. All because we're afraid of the Soviets, but we don't want to fight them directly even before they have a lot of news. So do you think the whole strategy of that setup was the fundamental problem, rather than just fighting them spend a lot of money all at once, but then it's over. I mean, that was that's what that's what General Patton wanted to do and, you know, Churchill Churchill probably wanted to do it but Patton. I mean the reason Patton was dismissed from his role as basically head of the US command in Berlin, right at the end of World War two was Patton was going to start a war with the Russians. He was begging for it. He was it was nudging them he was doing whatever he could to create an excuse to go to Moscow. He was ready and eager and they had a fire him they really and he tragically he got, he was killed in a traffic accident on his way home, in a sense. killed there are some conspiracy theories about the fact that maybe wasn't killed the fact that maybe he was wounded but who knows. Yes, I mean if we're going to go to war with Russia 45 is the time to do it. We've got the troops in Europe. We've got the industrial base in the United States. If we're going to if we're going to engage in warfare with the communists, then we could have done it on our own terms. Rush them at 45 replaced whatever regime they would have had in Russia or at least at least not given them Eastern Europe, whatever. I don't know a moral travesty. It was that that they gave them Eastern Europe. I mean, I think I've told this story before but Patton arrives on the board of the Czech Republic of Czechoslovakia. And he and he why is Eisenhower, and he says I can be in Prague in a day and I doesn't hear anything. And he why is him again I can be in and Bradley because Eisenhower was too political to actually put his to actually reply right because Eisenhower wanted to run for presidents Eisenhower was awful, horrible character, right. And so Eisenhower. So Bradley was Eisenhower's number two answers and says, No, we've promised it to the Soviets. So basically they gave handed on a silver platter Patton could have taken Eastern Europe, even and not to mention that a pattern that headed the invasion of Europe. At least according to Victor Davis Hansen, you know, and others who I've read the war would have been over in nine months earlier. You would have saved many people in the concentration camps, but also you would have had a straight shot for Eastern Europe. There would have been Germany would have been one country you would have probably gone into Poland, you'd have taken most of that. But the whole invasion of Europe the whole D day was a political exercise. And Patton was out because he had slapped the soldier. They also gave priority to what's his name the British general who got bogged down in the north and they had a reroute troops and energy and oil and how to help him out at the expense of patents forces. It was politics. And it's the beginning of the complete. Well, not the beginning, but the complete politicization of war, which I think has destroyed destroyed the American military. Oh, I was just going to ask is a quick follow up. Do you think it would have been legitimate if we say for self interest for reasons we just don't want to sacrifice that many American lives to take on the Soviets collapse on their own whatever the case. Absolutely, but that don't go with but if we then no career, no Vietnam, no troops everywhere around the world. You know, basically say the communists will do what the communists do if they want to take you up, they'll take you up. We're not intervening. So you can't have it both ways you either either take them on and if you take them on you take them on at 45 and you crush them. Or you don't take them on but then you don't sacrifice American troops in Korea and Vietnam for what for nothing. What about paying our allies basically here's some money here's some surplus weapons and ammunition and stuff that you want to fight like China. I didn't want to fight and didn't have the capabilities of doing it who wanted to fight nobody fought. I mean it's fine sending weapons to the bees and sending weapons to Koreans, but they would have lost. And they did lose, right. Or just defend themselves like so hey. Sure, we could have promoted that. Okay, but it's not clear that that would have saved them I you know if China enters the war South South Korea is toast. And, and we know that South Vietnam was toast no matter what so just just get out if you decided not to engage with the Soviets, don't engage with the Soviets. Daniel you want to say something. I was just saying it was Bradley, who was the British general I think that you were trying to know Bradley Bradley was an American general Eisenhower is number two, it's Montgomery Montgomery. And they, they, they, Montgomery who had done very well in Africa, but got bogged down in northern Europe, but because he was a Brit and because this had to be a coalition thing. The same reason why the allies didn't enter Paris. They waited around until a French general arrived with a few symbolic French troops, and they entered Paris it wasn't Paris wasn't liberated by the Americans. Not I mean speed is of the essence here speed is what matters and yet they, they, I don't know if there was the goal who entered Paris maybe was the goal. But, but it was all the World War two sadly, the way FDR fought it and the way Truman then fought it was an Eisenhower of course. The reason I as I was made. You know to lead Europe was all politics is all politics. And then you're right. Truman did not want. MacArthur to run for president. So he held him on in Japan and then when he got bogged down in Korea. He, he didn't give him what he would he didn't give him what he needed in order to win he didn't give approval to use nuclear weapons. And he wanted him to be perceived weak. He wanted him to be basically to not run for president of course he didn't he landed up not running for president. He still lost Eisenhower didn't he. I think Eisenhower still won. He never formally ran either time he was just trying to win on right and switch. Yeah, not the good strategy but. Okay, Jonathan. You've often talked about the kind of dramatic effects of compounding and how like what an extra 1% over time makes a huge difference. And I wonder my sense is it's the same thing the flip side and the destructive sense when it comes to inflation. Like, you know, even now they're saying well it's come down from seven to 6%, but is it the same type of compound destruction in terms of prolonged deflation when you've got three years four years five years that that destruction is compounding just like on the upside as well. Yes and no. So no in the sense that. Look if there was if everything was getting more expensive but your wages stayed the same and obviously it would be unbelievably destructive and it would be exponentially destructive and you would be wiped out. But the reality is that our wages keep up with inflation for the most part and and the economy keeps up with inflation for the most part. So here's the ways in which inflation is really, really destructive it's destructive in terms of redistribution of wealth. Some people benefit from inflation and some people lose from inflation and that has nothing to do with their productivity or their value added to the economy. It has everything to do with whether they hold debt or whether they are whether their creditors or debtors and whether they, their debt is denominator fixed interest rates of variable interest rates. So that's one way in which it redistributes wealth. Another even worse aspect of it is it distorts investment decisions. It makes it very, very difficult to decide on investments in the future, primarily investments both financial investments and productive investments. That's the problem that that destructive part of it is not is not the result of CPI inflation. That destructive part of it is the is is because of money inflation that is the world of the Federal Reserve in printing money and distributing it in the way it does. It basically influencing and manipulating interest rates. So the the distortion in production was going on in the United States during 0% interest rate the arrow way inflation was very low and we had 0% interest. And it was also going on right now with inflation very high. The real destructive part of inflation is the government manipulating money and interest rates and the fact that prices are going up is bad. And it hurts people because their wages don't quite keep up or they don't keep up in the short run or the long run, they tend to partially at least catch up. But, you know, so it's it's it's the existence of the central bank is the problem. Even more than the inflation that it brings about. You know, people say people say like the dollar, what is being eroded by 99% since 1913 or whatever, right? So a dollar back then is worth 10 cents today. I mean, that's true. But it's also true that your wages are much, much higher today because of inflation than they would be otherwise. Right. The nominal wages, not the real wages, your nominal wages are much higher. So you have to you have to correct for both nominal and if for real you have to think in terms of real real prices, not nominal prices. And that's why inflation is so insidious because it hurts you no matter what because the central bank exists. And it hurts you in ways you can't really see. The advantage of prices going up the advantage of CPI inflation is everybody sees it. Everybody knows it's bad and they want to fight it. The the evil of 0% inflation which we had for 10 years is that nobody sees it yet it has nobody sees the damaging effect, but it has horrible damaging effects out there. Does that make sense, Jonathan? Absolutely. Thanks for that answer and for the show and all you're doing these days great, great content and great work. Appreciate it. Thank you, Jonathan. I think that's everybody round two. Okay, let's do some super chats. Oh, he says, Have you seen people go through major transformations later in life late 20s early 30s? I developed strong purpose office the improved sense of life. It's pretty funny. You know, to him late in life is 20s or early 30s. God, what does that make me late late late late late late in life. That's that's pretty bad. Yes, absolutely. People go through major transformations in the 20s and 30s all the time. I would even argue some people go through major transformations even later in life than that. But I think in the 20s and 30s, there's still enough of flexibility. You're still not as committed things have not calcified quite as much. And then there's plenty of opportunities to go through complete and very, very deep and very, very thorough transformations. Again, I know people that happens to them in their 40s and 50s as well. So the later it is, the harder it is. No question about that. The less plasticity there is, if you will, in your value hierarchy, the less plasticity there is in your just the connections in your brain, the less plasticity there is in your psychology, your psychology is set. So the earlier the better but it is possible. It is possible. I think later as well. Ashton thank you Ashton $100 really appreciate it claims that cannot be tested assertions immune to disprove are very deckly worthless, wherever value, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or exciting our sense of wonder. Yes, I mean, there's some caveats to this. But that's a quote from Carl Sagan Carl Sagan was amazing. I when I watched was that show in the 1980s cosmos. It was so inspiring. It was so beautifully done. He had such a wonderful voice and he had such a wonderful sense of life, I think he was wrong on climate change environmentalism and so on. And the essential approach the central the wonder he expressed for science and engineering and progress and achievement was just amazing. And I learned a lot. I remember watching it. The whole series in Israel in the 1980s. And I'm a big admirer of that series and of Carl Sagan's work on it. The, you know, yes, I mean basically what he's saying is a is a epistemological principle that the arbitrary is non cognition. The arbitrary cannot be tested it cannot be seen it cannot be checked it cannot be it's just arbitrary. If I tell you they are invisible gremlins under the desk that have no, there's no way to test their existence there's no frequency they emit there's there's no way I can prove to you or show to you that they exist. But I know that they exist. That's a completely arbitrary statement that has no cognitive value that has no cognitive place it is worthless. And that's absolutely true so something that is immune from testing immune now. It depends what you mean by testing like if I say, this is a bottle of water. You know, or this is white, which is the evidence of the senses. What does it mean to prove that it's white. I mean, it is what it is. So, or there is such a thing is actually mad at knowledge. The arbitrary, the thing why I can't say look, see, and why I can't prove it why can't design a test to prove it where there's not conceivable test of proving it like the existence of God is meaningless and and therefore the arbitrary more broadly is cognitively meaningless. This is the point Leonard Peacock makes in one of his talks. Leonard elaborates on it quite brilliantly. It's definitely worth listening to. All right, Daniel says we need a rematch with Richard Wolf versus Iran. Somebody's working on that somebody's trying to get me to debate him on some podcast or something so stay tuned who knows. Apollo says over emphasis on reason and emotional repression. I don't know what that means, I guess with a got a friendship. I don't think you know the emphasize reason, but don't emotionally repress. Michael says, would you be willing to work for daily why after let you say whatever you want. Yeah, I might. I might. I worked for what do you call it from Glenn Beck's thing for a while. And they didn't pay me just to get to the audience. So I might it would be would really depend on the terms more than the money. It would depends on what what it means they will let me say what I want. To what extent did I have indeed endorse other hosts to what extent have to be nice to other hosts. Could I slam their other hosts so it would depend on a variety of things and when I wait for Glenn Beck's was Glenn Beck's thing. I forget. Basically I could do whatever I wanted they had no restrictions on me even then I wasn't 100% comfortable doing it. So I would have to really think about it. Right now, the place thank you Scott. You really think about it. Probably. If the terms are right, but I, I'm not 100% convinced. All right. Not do I have a algorithm. Are you no longer frustrated when people don't understand objectivism. How did you become so zen. How can you be frustrated by something that just is I mean it just it's just the reality. I mean, there's a certain, you know, underlying frustration but I can't be frustrated every single individual doesn't get objectivism. That's a lot of frustration much more than I'm willing to bear much more than the world deserves in a sense to penalize me with so I'm too selfish to be frustrated by by by other people's irrational. algorithm. Why do you think I ran resonated with businessman and the common man, more than intellectuals intellectuals likely to suffer from inferiority complex than the general population. I think because intellectuals had a vested interest in a particular view of the world in and and they had they had a whole they have a whole structure designed around that that is very very difficult for them to give up and I think that's a sense that she didn't resonate with them because they were not willing to give up that particular structure approach to the world. And remember she didn't resonate hugely with businessman and the common man otherwise the world would be a different place today I mean she resonated emotionally I'm a businessman ambitious. I have a sense of self interest. I think those sodas the common man in America and only in America and I think I ran would resonate less with Americans today, then she did 4050 years ago because a sense of life is different. You know I ran resonated with a sense of life that American and independent Americans have, and that sense of life is crushed out of squeezed out of intellectuals by the philosophy that they have to study and learn and educate for and teach. Yeah, I do you think that immigrants, some immigrants relate to the American sense of life more than native. Because they're self selecting because they came here because they, they, they were pursuing something that America represents right so it's a self selecting bias it's not true that if you had random pick up a Nigerian and Nigeria, he will be more of an American and an American but if an Nigerian makes the effort and goes to all the extent of actually emigrating to the US. They are likely to be more of an American in some way than an American born here is because they are exemplifying those values and they value those values that's why they came to the United States to begin with. So it's a self selection bias. All right, Frank asks, Edward De Bono made a case that the arbitrary is a tool of thinking, a provocation for creating new perception that are logical after they creation just a thought. And look, what's his name called Papa. You know it's huge on the arbitrary. I think they're both wrong. I think they're both wrong. I think the arbitrary is actually destructive, because it prohibits it. It wastes cognitive effort waste time it wastes energy by focusing on the the arbitrary I don't think the arbitrary opens up new. New areas I think it blocks new areas because it limits your ability to think. So, in order to truly open up one has to be ruthless about what ideas to put aside and what to focus on. And that means ignore the arbitrary and focus on the things that have fact and evidence to support them even if the fact and evidence are minor even if they're tiny even if they're small, even if it's super unlikely. It's still better, and it's still worth pursuing as compared to the arbitrary which should be rejected as quickly and effectively as possible. All right Scott says you've said objective is in the 70 synonymous with truth. If the two were shown today would should we go along with the truth objective is you've asked this question before. I mean, it's a silly question because what what there's only one answer to this question, unless you think I'm a mindless moron. You know the only answer this question is you follow the truth so. And I would say that is true and everybody would say that is true so it's, I don't see the validity of even. And it's not the first time I've been asked this question it's like, it's a leading question in some unhealthy way. Do you think the Santa strategy of ignoring Trump and being the adult in the room will work. I have no idea I don't know politics I don't understand I mean the politics of elections of who will win I'm always wrong. I never believe Trump would win until I guess in the weeks before the election I thought he could win but I don't know I have no idea what the right strategies if I were running. I denounce early and I would go all out ruthless no holds bar destruction of Donald Trump. I would bring up everything and not everything from his well everything, everything. You know, everything that he did as President everything he said leading up to President, what an absolute, you know, it is but also what a gross disgusting human being here. I would bring it all up I would bring what he said about grabbing, you know, women and what he said all of it, I would, and I would bring it all out and I would not stop I would spend significant money in just destroying the guy. And I would do it soon, because once you get up on stage, and you haven't said anything negative about Donald Trump. And given how vicious he is, then he is going to steam roll you, he's going to steam roll so actually no I don't think I knew I had an opinion this somewhere. I don't think it's a good strategy for the sentence. Daniel, using Lenin pickups dim categories, which would all this gender collectivism logically belong down to D1 D2 example in the manosphere one encounters many disintegrated ideas from Freud to skinner or both from Nietzsche to Christianity which makes me as pluralism. Now remember, again, Christianity. So the manosphere is not a set of coherent ideas. So you can assign. I think this is right. I mean this is tricky. You can assign D1 to D2 to just anything. Do you want to D2 or cultural movements cultural phenomena, intellectual ideological phenomena. Manosphere is a blimp in a culture of disintegration. It's one more form of men separating themselves from women and another example of not wanting to interact with women, which is an example of disintegration. The meaning of itself at D. It's an example of the world of these a world full of D. So don't I think Lenin said once, you know, don't also with people don't he's a D1 he's a D2 he's an M1 he's an M2. That's not what this is for this is about ideas and movements and cultural phenomena and you know which dominate or threaten to dominate this particular culture and it is people's generalized attitude towards integration. Towards integration, and whether they are pro integration or anti integration and if they're pro integration, whether they believe in integration around some around reality or an integration around something that is false like God, right. Are they trying to integrate, you know, are they trying to explain everything in terms of this idea can't you know and and and do they believe is there is a whole agenda, an agenda of the many the one in the many, right, driving everything towards a one. Right. And it's not an easy theory. It's not easy to apply. I don't, I'm not suggesting I do it right. I don't know, but it's not an easy theory to apply and you have to be cautious with it and they're going to be disagreements around it. I want how to apply it and we should all probably read them more than once. I hope that give you some indication Daniel. So, you know the whole culture we live in is a culture of disintegration. So it's a D one culture. It's a culture that doesn't see connections that doesn't unify doesn't integrate everything you deal with separately. Thanks as I wish I could afford you to you to review a dystopian film called a boy and his dog from Holland Ellison. Are these stories hard for you to watch. I don't know I mean depends how how bad it is dystopian it is how, you know, offensive it is. So, which reminds me, Jennifer had a question she emailed me. Let me just get to a question. I don't know they have an answer. What does it mean when the word intelligence is used in regards to animals. Obviously a dog is more intelligent that a fog doesn't mean a dog can hold more percepts at a time can learn as memory etc. And all of these concepts are difficult when we apply them to animals and auto machines for example so I, you know, I don't know the machines learn I don't know that animals learn in a sense that human beings learn, because for all of them. There's almost basically an algorithm running in the background and doing stuff. It is no engaging there's no learning there's no. And in that sense intelligence there's no initiation there's no. You know that that free will that human beings have that none of these other entities have they can actually reason they can actually do things that are not already encoded that are not coded. You know, so I think it's wrong to use these types of animals but to the extent that we do. I think what differentiates animals and clearly there's difference in animals in terms of their skill set is exactly that the skill set which is the ability to deal with complex situations. So dogs can deal with complex situations, whereas amoebas can't amoebas can do one thing and you know they and they just drift around they can't even sell really self propel in any kind of way. But dogs can look around they can decide on decide not really decide like they go in different paths they can they integrate a lot more information into the processing process they have a better process. They have a more powerful chip inside, and therefore they can process more information, and therefore deal with a lot greater complexity. And that's the difference between a fog and a, and a, and a dog and a chimpanzee who can process even more information. And, and can, you know, maybe even come close to being cognate cognition right come close to forming a concept in some very very primitive sense, but not quite right when you hear about language and in apes or chimpanzee so it's about the processing power. And in that sense it's very similar to AI, I think. Thank you, Jennifer. Okay, we got four quick super chat questions and then we'll, we'll five, and then we'll call it a day. All right, what's the relation between lack of integration and the primacy of consciousness mindset. Oh, God. It's a great question but I don't know that I have answers. Lack of integration and primacy consciousness mindset. I mean, if you have a privacy of consciousness mindset. What exactly are you integrating. You're not integrating facts out there from reality. You're not integrating evidence that you're receiving whatever you're integrating is just internal to your own consciousness. So it really is an integration because integration has to be connected to reality. It has to connect things that in reality, a privacy of consciousness mentality, I think is just moving symbols around inside your head and it's it's not real integration. The best that I can do on on the fly. McFinn is Japan a better country to live in right now avid salaries 100k avid salaries not 100k of its immediate salaries 20k. So the five times poorer than you thought they were. It's pretty poor. I mean, I've seen this from economists writing about it people who travel through Japan and look at how people Japanese live. They live in very small homes they drive small cars they. They don't have the kind of luxuries we have they don't take the kind of stuff we take for granted, in terms of the way and the style that we live they don't travel as much as Americans do. They just have less significantly less income. Is it a better country right now the only dimension I think which it's better. Well, maybe a few dimensions but one is crime. It's unbelievably safe is basically no violent crime in Japan or very little food. They're phenomenal food. Harper friend Harper says they have anime that's that I guess that's good I don't get anime. It's clean. It's you know, things like that but it's it's. Yeah, I mean, but Japan is not. I think people somehow have a misconception. Japan needs capitalism needs capitalism to get rich. Apollo Zeus perceptual information that gets absorbed without conscious recognition. Yeah, I mean that gets absorbed. Yes, we do. We do see things that we don't immediately consciously identify that we can sometimes recall from memory. I think that happens. I think that gets implanted somewhere in the brain that we saw something even though we don't say oh we don't recognize it in the moment consciously. And the author says why is it so unusual for people to see the eye that to see that ideas have consequences, because ideas are very abstract. And indeed I think it's very complicated to see that ideas have consequences. Right. I mean, America's statist and yet life seems pretty good. And you guys constantly hopping on the fact that statism is so destructive when life is actually pretty good. And look, we just showed a graph where America's the richest kind of the developed world America's the richest country in the world. So stop, you know, so the way ideas impact the world impact reality is complicated and complex and nuanced and you have to be able to show it, you have to be able to show it over the scope of history you have to be able to show it in the short term and long term. And it ain't easy. It ain't easy. Spend offices compared to ancient cultures. Would you say it's much easier to apply dim to the past as compared to the present more recent Japan by anime produces a lot of cultural products that vary in dim identities. Yeah, but that's why you can't take a product that product doesn't have a dim identity. I don't think Leonard would think that a product had a dim identity. I mean, unless it was a Victor Hugo novel, or it was some some broad scope type of thing, right. And even then, you would say, let me rub this is integrated. The dim hypothesis is an applied to let me rub this the dim hypothesis the place to Islam is the rubbler's a dominant feature of art in France in the 19th century and what does that mean vis a vis the culture. But it's very difficult to identify the dim hypothesis generally. It's very difficult to do it for the present because there's so many things going on right now. How does one step out of the present to look at the president see what's going on. It's not easy. There are lots of currents that are under underground that we don't see the turn out to be dominant. It's, you know, did we see the tea party turning into trumpets. No, only not only not until Trump got elected. Where did you put it go. Oh, they all became Trump is and some of them completely mindless Trump was a Trumpist. I mean, that was a culture of phenomena that was right in front of our noses. And first of all didn't manifest itself Trump until Trump showed up and then it was hard to understand what was going on in the present. So and where we heading now and what are the leading ideologies that are driving things under the surface where we So it's much easier to do this on historical analysis than on the present. All right. Thank you everybody. Thanks to our panel. Thanks all the support you guys provided on a monthly basis really really appreciate that if you guys want to support the one book show on a monthly basis you want to join the panel. You can do so on your own book show dot com slash support patreon subscribe star. Even locals, but patreon subscribe star and PayPal or the three main I somebody asked me today about doing on a Venmo you can do it on Venmo it's book media book media is my handle at book media is the handle on Venmo, if you want to send support. So the super chat is and we will have a members only show tomorrow members only show tomorrow there's still plenty of time to become a member at 2pm East 2pm, sorry, 1pm East Coast time 1pm East Coast time. And then we'll be back to our daily shows on Monday so you can still become a member it's just five bucks a month. You can do that by pressing the join button right underneath the video. Bye everybody. I will see you all tomorrow or next week. Thank you.