 Like, I mean, his China policy, the fact that he came out with a statement on the Uighurs, I thought it was very strong. You know, it's one of the stronger things he did, but it's not coming up in the polls. And I think that whole Republicans. Interesting, nobody cares about what's happening to the Uighurs. OK, you you bring it up because you really care. And I think that's nice that you care. The rest of us don't care. I'm just telling you very hard. You're saying you personally don't care. I'm telling you a very hard, ugly truth. OK, of all the things that I care about, yes, it is below my line. Wow. So he doesn't care about the Uighurs. He doesn't care about the Uighurs. Of all the things he cares about, this is below his line. And this is what freaked the world out. I mean, this little clip, this video of him saying it's below my line has been playing over and over again, all over Twitter, all over the place. It's been on national television. It's been on the news shows. It's been everywhere because how dare him? How dare he say he doesn't care? Now, there's a question of how much he doesn't care what that actually means. But there's something really honest and truthful here. How many of you care beyond a broad abstract caring? Yes, you know, it's it's it's bad that it's happening. It's immoral that it's happening. It's it's bad that the Chinese are doing this. We'll get to afterwards with some of these people actually questioning whether the Chinese actually doing this stuff or not, or whether it's basic propaganda. But basically, the point here is if you want to interpret it the way I would interpret it, I'm not sure this is what he means is, look, I'm busy living my life. I've got concerns about how to live the best life that I can live. This is an egoistic perspective. I don't really care in a sense that it's going to make a dent in my life, why I'm going to invest money or time or significant thought or change my opinion about Biden. Because of the Uighurs. Now. You know, it's probably overstated because suddenly I've talked about the Uighurs. And I've talked about the fact that it's a travesty and it plays a role in my evaluation of China. But I'm a professional intellectual. I'm kind of paid to do this. This is what I do for 99 percent of the people out there, for 99 percent of the people who are like Chamath, Pauli Hoppati, Tia, Tia, something like that. Anyway, the Uighurs have no relevance to their life. The fact that a horrible injustice is happening on the other side of the world is horrible in some sense. And on the other hand, it is not going to stop you from engaging in life. These kind of things have been happening. The human race has been engaged in these kind of behaviors forever. It again is sad at the margin. But I'm not going to lose sleep over it. I'm not going to change my day-to-day behavior for it. I'm not sending money to organizations to advocate against Uighur genocide, although I think it would be fine if you did. To what extent should it change behavior? And it's fascinating to me that everybody was upset by this. And yet everybody behaves as if what he just said is true. Nobody literally changes their day-to-day life. They day-to-day activity. Nobody actually changes the values in their life, or very few people do, because of what's going on among the Uighurs. People have problems in their own lives. They have relationship problems, they have monetary problems, or they just have the challenge of living a good life and pursuing a great life. So there's something very self-interested about this, and there's certainly something very honest about it. Because what he's not doing is doing the regular thing that people out there do, which is virtue signal. They'll say, oh, I care about the Uighurs, and then they don't do anything, don't really act on it, doesn't change their life one way or the other. And the nice thing about this is he doesn't project any guilt about it. He doesn't project any guilt about it. What is going on in the chat right now? This discussion about cookies and about Arab bakeries. There are some good Arab bakeries in Michigan, but really, we're talking about serious stuff. All right, it's distracting me. I'm getting hungry watching this. All right, so I think this is fascinating. I think it's interesting that the way the world responded to this, the people were apoplectic about this. No need to say you're sorry, Jennifer, it's fine. But let's let's listen to more of this because I think I think the exchange between them now becomes really, really, really interesting, because I think you can see different attitudes, different way of viewing the world, different view of doing the world from the attitude now towards this statement that has been made. Nobody cares about the Uighurs. It doesn't make my list of things that I care about right now in my life. OK, of all the things that I care about, it is below my line. Disappointing. Well, I think people, if you if you explain to them what's happening to the Uighurs in China, they care, but it's not top of mind for them. That's of course not. Why would it be top of mind for anybody? It's in China, it's far. These horrible things happen. You don't have any control over it. And again, life should be about not about trying to solve every problem around the world and weeping and caring about every injustice that happens around the world. It's about living. It's about the positive values that life involves, that life requires. It's not caring. It's top of mind right now as they go to the grocery store and the shelves are empty. Yeah, and prices, I mean, these guys are all pretty wealthy, but prices are significantly higher. And while the wages are higher, they're not as high as the prices have gone up. Stephanie asked, are Muslims the victims in the scenario? Yes, Muslims are definitely the victims among the Uighurs among in Western China. Sure, that I care about. Yeah, I care about the fact that our economy could turn on a dime if China invades Taiwan. I care about that. I care about climate change. You know, I care about a bunch of I care about America's crippling and, you know, decrepit health care infrastructure. But if you're asking me, do I care about a segment of a class of people in another country, not until we can take care of ourselves? Will I prioritize them over us? Now, notice that not until we take care of ourselves. And this is the problem. And you'll see this later on in their conversation. Basically, saying, not. You know, I care about my life. I care about my values. There's enough there to consume most of my thinking. There's enough there to consume most of any human being's thinking is how to live the best life that he can in the world that exists around him. His perspective is, and you'll see more of this. We have a lot of problems here. There are a lot of real issues here. Now, those issues affect me. So I care about them more justifiable. Absolutely. If I solve all those problems, will all the issues that affect you go away? Of course not. He's leading towards a moral equivalency between the US and China. We have problems. They have problems. We do bad things. They do bad things, which is really, really bad. But nobody focused on that. None of the criticism of him was focused about the moral equivalence equivalency he's about to make or the whole group of them are about to make. The only guy who stands up for America funnily and ridiculously enough is the leftist, all the altruistic leftist. All of them make moral equivalency between the United States and China. And nobody was upset about that. What they upset about is that he said he doesn't care about the Uighurs. In the context of his life, in the context of all the things he cares about, what can be done to help the Uighurs practically, Wanda Freeman asks? Well, I mean, you could stop buying stuff from China, from that region in China. US manufacturers, US companies could all leave that section in China. They could leave China completely. We could boycott China completely. We could shut off trade with China in order to help the Uighurs. We could, at the very extreme of this, we could go to all of China to liberate the Uighurs. So you could go there's a whole array of things that can be done. I know a lot of people believe we should have entered World War II now because necessarily Hitler was going to be a threat to the United States ultimately, which is a legitimate reason. And we could argue about whether that's a good reason, but a legitimate one. No, but because we needed to go there to stop the genocide, the Holocaust against the Jews. Well, if there's something like a Holocaust going on with the Uighurs in China, would those same people justify a war with China in order to stop it? So there's a whole variety of things that can be done. How much of your life are you willing to give up in order to do it? Let's keep watching. And I think a lot of people believe that. And I'm sorry if that's a hard truth to hear. But every time I say that I care about the Uighurs, I'm really just lying if I don't really care. That's good because most people lie all the time. People lie all the time about these things. It's what we call virtue signaling, right? I know Hitler declared war in the United States and that's what we should have entered at that point. There was no, yeah, of course we should have. But the question was should have we entered a year or two before that? What he's calling out, which I think is very good, is the kind of virtue signaling that everybody engages in, right? Everybody engages in. And so I'd rather not lie to you and tell you the truth. It's not a priority for me. And my response to that is I think it's a sad state of affairs when human rights as a concept globally falls beneath, you know, tactical and strategic issues that we have to have. That's another luxury belief. It's a luxury belief, right? So the perspective that he's taking is not that the belief is wrong. Not that the ultra leftist wants everybody to be a bleeding heart and everybody to really care and everybody to do something about it and to rise up and make a big deal out of this. And I think our political leaders should make a big deal out of this from the bully pulpit, right? But the argument is not that's wrong. That's philosophically wrong. But it is that's a luxury belief. That is what, you know, and generally you could view altruism as a luxury belief. Once you're taking care of yourself and you've got a lot of money and you're living a good life, then you can start sacrificing for the people, caring about other people in this deep sense. That's the perspective. It's not the dismiss altruism. But to say, look, right now we're trying to survive, although it's kind of funny because he's a billionaire so he's not trying to survive. And the problems that America has seem like problems of wealth, problems of the rich kid in town. And so the whole framing of this from their perspective is wrong. It's altruism as a mall ideal. And these guys are kind of cynical. We don't actually care. And then and then you'll see some of them actually say, ah, we don't even think it's a problem. That's another luxury belief. I don't believe believing in the human declaration of human rights that Eleanor Roosevelt. I don't think it's a luxury belief to believe that all humans should have a basic set of human rights. I think it's a luxury. By the way, the declaration of human rights is terrible. It's a completely statist view of individual rights. It's not the view of a Lockean or Jeffersonian view of individual rights at all. At all. Yeah, I mean, there's a sense in which he's virtue signaling maybe not about the Uggers, but about common Americans, about the prices going up in the grocery store, because for him it doesn't matter, right? But he can't completely not be altruistic, right? He has to give some credence to some moral code. The problem is they don't have a moral code. Most of these guys in Silicon Valley in the left is clearly is a committed altruist, but the rest of them are progressists. And the reason I think it's a luxury belief is we don't do enough domestically to actually express that view in real tangible ways. So until we actually clean up our own house, the idea that we step outside of our borders with, you know, with us sort of like morally virtue signaling about somebody else's human rights track record is deplorable. Look at the number of black and brown men that are... Far from deplorable. Far from deplorable. I mean, think about this. What he's basically saying here is, and this is what I find horrific about him, what he's saying here is, we commit human rights violations, right? We commit human rights violations. We are bad. We've got big problems. We treat people horribly. Who are we to step out of our borders and give moral advice to other people? Now that's deplorable. It's funny because here the leftist is the one calling him up on it, right? The leftist is going to be the one defending America, which is kind of funny. Look at the number of black and brown men that are incarcerated for absolutely ridiculous crimes. Yeah, but think about that. I agree that way too many people are incarcerated, black, brown, white, yellow, green, no matter what. They're way too many people incarcerated, primarily from victimless crimes, drug crimes and so on. Lots and lots and lots of them. But they broke the law, you know, and it's a law that China has against drug trading and drug use. It's a bad law, but it's not as bad as laws against free speech, laws against your religion. To morally equate what Americans do and what Chinese do is absurd and ridiculous. We don't run concentration camps. We don't run reeducation camps. We put people in jail who break the law. We have standards or standard might be wrong. The laws are terrible. So unfortunately, in spite of the fact that I sympathize with this original statement, he goes completely downhill from here and of course nobody cares about this. This they all agree with. But his moral equivocation between the United States and China is absurd and ridiculous and that's what he should be ashamed of. We are not an authoritarian regime yet. We're not an autocracy. We don't have one man rule and we don't have concentration camps. We don't harvest prisoners organs and sell them on the black market as they do in China or maybe it's not a black market. I don't know if you saw this past week, but there is a person that was released from jail because he couldn't even be protected in jail because in some of these cells they run these fight clubs inside of Rikers Island that are basically tacitly endorsed by the corrections officers that don't do anything. And the difference? Well, this is this is horrible. The fact that stuff like that exists. But there's a huge difference, one of which will be articulated right now. Hold on Jason. So if you want to talk about the human rights of people, we have a responsibility to take care of our own backyard first. First. And then we can go and basically morally tell other people how they should be running their own countries. I mean, there's a real truth there in a sense. And this is the example I always give that if America becomes a shining city on the hill, if America actually lives up to its promise, if America lived up to its declaration of independence, if it becomes a moral standard for the world, then our bully pulpit would mean something. It would actually have power. It would have significance. So he's right in the sense. This is why all these issues are nuanced, right? He's right in the sense that as long as we're violating rights, as long as we're not a completely free country, why, you know, should our leaders be lecturing the rest of the world? Well, yes, because there's a big difference between how bad things are here and they're bad and how bad they are in China, orders of magnitude worse. And again, to make the moral equivalency is horrible. To not see the difference in kind between what we do in the U.S. with all the potential injustices that are involved, and what China does to its own citizens and not see the difference in kind there is to be woefully blind. It's to be woefully, you know, blind. Blind is a good word. Evasive. The difference is, Chamath, saying what you just said in China or Saudi Arabia would put you in jail and get you 100 lashes and you would be tortured for a decade. We here in the United States are far from perfect. We still have the death penalty which is against the United Declaration of Human Rights, which we signed, which Eleanor Roosevelt created in the U.N., and we propagated as Americans around the world. We started that, Chamath. And we can have these discussions about being better in this country and what aboutism that you're proposing is so disproportional to the equivalent of the Holocaust going on. We're talking about a million Uighurs in concentration camps right now to talk about what we have here that we need to fix and compare it to that or to Saudi Arabia whipping bloggers and throwing gay people off roofs for being gay. These two things are not morally comparable. I agree with him. I agree with the leftist. They're not morally comparable. The difference isn't kind. And not recognize that and not being willing to say, that's evil what's going on there. It's not going to change my life, but it is evil what's going on there. And we can judge it and we can morally condemn it. And the fact that he won't do that is a horrible weakness in Chamath's perspective. They are very far, and we need to have open discussions and talk about human rights all the time because if we do not talk about it all the time, then your position, which is I don't have time for that, I want to solve my problems, then gives the green light to dictators everywhere that nobody's watching. We need to have vigilance and that's what I find and I think we need to work. So I agree with that. I think we do need to be able to say that. We also need to be honest enough to say, we're going to focus on our own problems. Can't control what's going on over there. We're going to focus on our own problems. We're not going to sacrifice to solve the problems over there. We're going to focus on our own problems. We're going to condemn it morally and focus on our own problems. Hold on a second. That's not what I said and that's not true. You said you can't get up for it. That's a problem. Are you saying that the situation with the Uighurs is the same as the Holocaust? People who are Jewish are making that comparison. You never make a Holocaust comparison. I'm asking you practically speaking. I think it is comparable. There are upwards of a million people in a concentration camp right now. This is getting to numbers that are actually comparable. A million people in a concentration camp are not being gassed to death. We're not killing millions of people in an industrial fashion as the Nazis did. It was a lot more than 6 million Jews. It was 10 to 12 million total people just gassed and killed in an industrial manner. That's not what the Chinese are doing. So again, exaggeration is very little nuance and reason and rationality and facts and a proper moral perspective on these things from almost anybody in the culture. It is actually a valid comparison. You're saying there are a million people in a concentration camp? That is the numbers that human rights organizations are saying between 300,000 and a million people are incarcerated right now being tortured, raped and in doing forced sterilization, released or being tracked in ghettos. And so are you saying the entire world Hold on. Are you saying the entire world has basically decided that that doesn't matter? You just said you can't get up for it. I'm talking about you specifically. Who is getting up for it? I am very up on it and I talk about it all the time every week. What about the US government? What are they doing about it? Biden just said we are going to do a ban and we are going to sanction companies that do business in that region. Do you think there will be a global and Tesla? I think there will be increased pressure on all companies that are engaging in China over human rights. It's goods that are sourced from those areas, right? Correct, yes. It's not doing business there. If your supply chain comes from that area then it's a first step. We won't buy Nazi goods but we'll sell our iPhones into Nazi Germany. Well, if you want to have a discussion about this, it's how do we disengage from countries that have brutal dictatorships that are committing human rights atrocities? I think I'm spending a lot of time and money actually trying to fortify America's supply chain. You guys know about some of the things that I'm doing. Absolutely, it's fantastic. I'm not doing that from a moral perspective. I'm doing that from a practical capitalist perspective. I think the jobs are better served for Americans and I think that we should have the ability to build our own businesses just like China has the right to do for themselves. Without the risk of these things being undercut by policies that we don't understand which is effectively what you do when you outsource your supply chain to countries where you're not 100% aligned with them. Yeah, and they're dictatorships. So, again, I'm not even sure that China is a dictatorship the way that you want to call it that. He's not sure China is a dictatorship. How is it not a dictatorship? I mean, it's really bizarre. I mean, China is a dictatorship. China is a dictatorship. I mean, it's really bizarre. It's really bizarre. How is China not a dictatorship? Again, I think that Communist country that's in the name Look, you have to understand, Jason, there are a set of checks and balances here on China that, you know, at the end of the day What checks and balances? I don't think that I have the moral absolutism to judge China. See, he doesn't have the moral absolutism to judge China. All of this is done all of this is approached for practical moralistic non-moral absolutist perspective. You know, yeah, who can judge? You can know. I think that America is better off with the supply chains over here. But who knows and I'm not going to judge you Chinese and China is not a dictatorship. What's the definition of a dictatorship? Is one man rule no say for the population breaking up businesses whenever they want. And I would say that when NATO is silent, the United Nations is silent. All of Western Europe is silent. So the standard is when other people speak the standard is what the United Nations does and America is effectively silent that this issue may be small data points being extrapolated in a way to create a narrative that may be not be true. And if it is true, Jason, there's a responsibility for those body politics to do something because that is the early warning signal that the rest of the world uses to say, okay, hold on, let me re-prioritize my list of things. So I guess what I'm saying is I am not going to be an armchair journalist on this topic, nor am I going to be the armchair human rights advocate for the world because I just don't know. I can focus on the things that I know about, build the things that I know about. And if something really does get red light status then other parties will do something and again, I just want to be clear. NATO is silent. United Nations is silent. America is silent. A press release doesn't change the actual technical posture on these topics. I agree with him again. It is such a mixture, but this is typical of pragmatists, right? He's just focused on his, what he can do, his life, his projects, and since the rest of the world doesn't care, since the United Nations doesn't care, since nobody else seems to care, he's not going to care. I mean, you've got to judge for yourself, particularly in the world in which we live, the United Nations cares about a lot of things I'm not sure he should care about. Again, I find it fascinating to hear this kind of mix signals, uncertainty and real, real pragmatism. Real pragmatism. Thanks for watching. Show your appreciation. You can do that by going to youronbookshow.com slash support by going to Patreon, subscribe star, locals, and just making an appropriate contribution on any one of those channels. Also, if you'd like to see the Iran Book Show grow, please consider sharing our content and of course, subscribe. Press that little bell button right down there on YouTube so that you get an announcement when we go live. Those of you who are already subscribers and those of you who are already supporters of the show, thank you. I very much appreciate it.