 All right, I am gonna mute you guys. So 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. It's been a fantastic beginning of a weekend, long weekend. And hopefully, yeah, I don't know where I was in that sentence. I lost, I lost a plot. So we have today, we have our AMA ask me anything, although you could have asked me anything all week long. So it's not like I'm sure you guys are holding out for some question that you haven't had an opportunity to ask me. But today is going to be the day. But I do have some people joining me here on on video who are going to ask, get us going with some questions. The rest of you online can use a super chat feature to ask questions. It is on. It is belated happy birthday or early Merry Christmas. And yeah, it was closer to my birthday than to Christmas. So I think a belated happy birthday is good. Thank you Catherine YBS helps me hold on to my sanity. So thank you. I'm glad I'm glad to, I'm glad to be there to help people stay sane. I'm not sure exactly what's going to happen to me but you know, but we'll see hopefully hopefully I can stay sane as well. Some would argue that is that the time for that has already passed. All right. We are. I guess we're ready. Yeah, let's get started. All right. Jennifer. How familiar are you with the Bank of England? Is it sort of like our Fed or is it different? It's, yeah, sort of like our Fed and it's, you know, it's sort of like our Fed. I guess I wanted to compare the two but they're pretty much the same thing. And there are differences technically that there's some differences for example the Federal Reserve is is nominally owned by the big banks it's it's nominally, you know, from ownership perspective supposedly not a government entity. Of course it is a government entity the government controls every aspect of it and all the profits go to the government that they don't go to the private banks but for example, if the government shuts down, right, if there's a debt crisis limit, it's not like anybody that the Fed is going to get fired they have a different budget they have a different, you know, everything's everything's separate. So the Fed has some independence that is greater than a typical central bank a typical central bank is is much more closely closer aligned if you will legally and structurally to to the central government. The Bank of England was modeled after the bank originally was more like the central bank in terms of it was a conglomerate of other banks, but that that fiction has gone away a long time ago in England. It was modeled after the Bank of Amsterdam which is really the first central bank. But yeah, in terms of how it manages that what it does, it's pretty much the same it buys government bonds and sells government bonds it manipulates the interest rate market, primarily by buying and selling government bonds and placing certain restrictions on the banking system. I'm sure the differences just in the scope of regulation regulation or banking and finance generally is quite a bit different in the UK than it is in the US. So I'm sure from the regulatory perspective the two are different. The Fed has become this massive monster it's the largest employer, a PhDs in economics in the world I think, I think it employs more PhDs in economics than the Chinese government. So, so the Fed has taken on kind of it's become its own kind of a kind of a monstrous organization. I don't think the Bank of England is quite as big and and cumbersome and yeah, but also UK is a much smaller country. You know, the Fed has branches all over the country. What are the nine federal federal banks around the country. The most important one in New York but there's one in Dallas there's one in Minneapolis I think there's one more in this in this in this one in San Francisco. So, structurally the differences but in terms of actual functioning, not much. Thank you. Thanks Jennifer. Andrew. Good afternoon. Am I coming through. Yeah, yep. Okay, you're good. Just wanted to make one point before the question since we're on the membership show. And you had asked the audience to think about ways to increase membership, or members of the show I mean, one thing on my behalf that it's, you know, so many of us are passionate about these ideas and ideas about freedom and individualism and we're always kind of kicking ourselves that we're not doing enough to put it out into the culture. Yep. And, you know, you are doing this and other intellectuals are doing this actually things that maybe we think feel guilty we should be doing but we have other priorities or other goals or values in life and that the way that you can. It's not about guilt it's about pride. It's a point of pride to support and energize the people who are doing this kind of advocacy. When we feel a lot of us in the audience I'm sure feel passionate about it ourselves. And this is just, this is a way where you can, you're really doing something by doing that, you know and I think maybe people feel like they're doing something what's what's the big deal you're kind of throwing money at the problem know you're energizing the people who are doing this. Absolutely. I really appreciate you saying that and that's absolutely right. Yeah. Great. My question for you is going to be about America and capitalism. You know, prior to America, there were elements of capitalism in the world I mean, almost always historically right in the sense of, in the sense of markets, in the sense of certain elements of private property and trade. So, in your view I mean as being so knowledgeable that history, what happened when America America put forth these founding documents that were so important philosophically and conceptualize private property, and so on and freedom and the pursuit of happiness, obviously so importantly, what happened historically, such that people can kind of say America be get begot capitalism, as opposed to maybe the earlier versions of private property and trade and making money and and there was business right prior to America I mean there were businesses in Europe there were businesses in a lot of different but but not quite the same form as what occurred in America after the founding so could you talk a little bit about that. Yeah, I mean, I think it's, I mean the two, two issues here one is that you have to be careful because it's not clear that I'm, you know, directly American begot these things right so America is a product of a particular intellectual movement that is going on primarily in Europe and in America is a satellite of Europe back then and that intellectual movement is the movement enlightenment it's a movement that is pro liberty it's a movement that's pro property rights. It's a movement that is very very strong in in the UK it has very strong elements in England in France, but really almost every European country has elements of people arguing for the enlightenment so even if America hadn't existed if you will. Things would have happened in Europe anyway, because these ideas were, you know, percolating they were manifesting themselves and you would have still had an industrial pollution would have been different would mean slower. And certainly America gives it energy and and really presents a shiny city in the hill model of what it can look like. But the ideas were there, the ideas were already happening and in that sense again America is the manifestation of those ideas. It's the realization of those ideas ideas that were going on from lock on in in all over Europe and then in the US. So so that's one so the ideas were already in play. But the second is that that yes America provides a model a concrete is something visual and perceptual something that people can easily mimic. If people said oh be careful freedom, it can cause all this horrible things well here's American horrible things are not happening there. Relatively good things are happening though if people, if people thought well we can't we can't defend property it's too much. Well, what about America, you know and again America was flawed from the beginning but at least it represented these ideas in a more consistent way, so that you know and in a sense think about that the fact that with when it comes to slavery, England is way ahead of America right I mean they they eradicate slavery a lot, you know 60 70 years before we do and, and they have a sense of much more robust discussion about it in America. It's always tainted with politics and fear of the son of the south, leaving so even the people who were anti slavery were careful in how they spoke. So, so America presented now this model, it also presented a place where people could go to. So you had a brain drain and you had massive immigration out of Europe, and particularly out of the more oppressed areas in Europe where you know parts of Italy they were very poor and still run by city states or whether it was in the 19th century, or as it as a unified but we're still poor, or whether it was from Eastern Europe which was very oppressed during that that period of time, or which was quite oppressed during the 19th century and you get massive immigration into the US. Again, proof of concept. So what you get in America is a proof of concept, and the documents themselves are revered all over the world so people in South America are reading them and being inspired by them people in, in different parts of Europe are reading them and being inspired by them so there really is a movement to try to understand and to read and and ultimately be inspired by the founding documents of America so it motivates people. If you if you go back to Latin America even I mean Latin America. This is the period that is that is unfortunately there's a there's a window here where they get inspired by America and they could have gone that route. And instead they get dominated by, you know, continental German French philosophy and they go a different route. But there's a reason why Latin America is fairly rich in the 19th century. Because it's inspired by the US and fairly free. So it's the shiny city in the hill that Reagan described it's the, it's the model it's proof of concept that then inspire and of course it's the intellectual argument in practice in reality not just in John Locke but he would, he would isn't documents he would isn't a people living that inspires people. That's that's great I like that point about immigration to because it's a concrete that the flow of immigrants is is undeniable, and one could say well, they came for there was simply money to be made, but that's that is because there was freedom a foundation of freedom. There was money to be made but it was huge risk. I mean, people forget, you know, you got on a boat it took two weeks to get there you didn't really know always going to happen you'd never seen a picture you've never seen a movie you read some stories, half of them were propaganda and you didn't know you, many of them didn't have any relatives that didn't know anybody where they were going. Some of them arrived in New York and then got got on wagons and traveled west nobody knew what was west and Indians were there and the nature was there and bad guys were and the anarchy was there and think about the risk. So a lot of these people didn't conceive of it is going to make money they conceived it as as will own land, be able to farm my own land I won't be a surf anymore I won't be, you know, the poor in Europe, particularly in Eastern Europe where they couldn't own land but but even think about, I mean Minnesota and a lot of the Midwest is is is that that's Swedes and Germans and Norwegians and you know very kind of northern European or central European. And the idea that in Germany you had it set off a tiny little land because, you know, every time you inherited land it was split between the kids, suddenly you could come and get acres and acres of land and there was no limit. So there were a lot of reasons but again, it was the idea that you could own it and you could start from scratch, which is the essential, which is essentially freedom you could be free to go and pursue what you wanted to pursue. But it was unbelievably risky people have no sense today about risk is we lived spoiled, unbelievably spoiled safe shielded lives. We have no conception of the kind of life. That's part that's partly why it's so. So sorry. I'm saying it's partly why it's so ugly to watch the conservatives attack on immigration, because those people are still risking their lives to come here and to paint them as villains. It's a you know, law and order is a is a value, but to paint that group of people as villains, I think is morally apparent. Absolutely. And you know I've had some accounts of what it means to cross over the Panama jungle into you know they have to cross from many of them come from South America from south of Panama, a lot of Chinese now are going to South America and they crossing over Panama and through Central America and to cross over there and a number of bodies that are there are people who didn't make it and and and the risk people take just astounding. And one of the great injustices in the world is the vilification of immigrant same things going on in Europe was just reading a story now about these, you know, at some point Belarus, which is Putin's ally with regard to Ukraine and Belarus decided that in order to harass the West, they would bring a bunch of people in from the Middle East, they would promise them that they could emigrate through Belarus into Poland, and enter Europe that way. And of course, there was no way to him because Poland didn't want them so Poland had gods and they, and, and some of these poor people are stuck in this forest between Belarus and Poland and a bean. Wait, he took the Texas Abbott approach and made it international. Is that like the international. Wow. The dictator Belarus basically told everybody in Syria, if you come here will will take you to the border will literally provide you with taxis taking just cross over to Poland so we can corrupt the polls. And then the polls said no and they stopped them so now you've got hundreds of people stuck in this forest between Belarus and Bella it's cold, and they've got winters there and many have died and it just, you know the use and manipulation of people like that is just so horrific. But yes, that's that's basically using immigrants as weapons is just horrific but think about, think about the courage it takes from somebody to get up and go now granted today we have a welfare state and when you come Germany gives you a check and helps you out. But still you know most of these people. You know this will be controversial. Most of these people are not trying to travel to the US or trying to travel to Europe to become welfare recipients. Most of them want to go work a life for themselves. Yeah. So, so the fact that you're giving them a check is. Yeah, yeah, it helps it reduces the risk, but it's not the purpose. Anyway, thank you. I appreciate it. Hey, um, first, I wanted to just because the talk of immigration and that kind of stuff got me remembering. There's a ongoing Netflix anime called Vinland saga, and it's about Vikings they that the years roughly like 1020. And there's a lot of talk of like going abroad. And it's like the only anime I've ever worked with that's like I want to be there because leaf Eric sends a character and he's like, Oh yeah I made it to this place called Vinland it's green acres forever and there's no war and there's no slave traders and I just watched this really start breaking up so where a slave woman was like basically beaten to death, but they got her out of the situation and they're like come to Iceland with us. And she's like is there war there and he's like I can't say there'll never be war there. And then she's like I don't want to go. And then he told her about Vinland as she dosed off into the afterlife. And it was a great scene, but like there's a lot of craving abroad. Yeah, and then you know Iceland's basically a rock in the middle of nowhere and many of them die of starvation there because yeah hotel land in the world and, and it's just, you know, so. Yeah, she didn't want to go there either. That's what people are that they're willing in the in that period to go to Iceland and then of course they kill each other they'll go to war, but they start slaughtering each other over. The show all in all is to tell people to not glorify the Vikings because you're just slaughtering fathers and brothers and sons and families and you just like the main characters, like crippled with PTSD of being a like fighting from the age of five. He's like an adult now but so anyway my question, the first one was. And you guys might cover this when you talk to on car, got a on Tuesday. But on the issue of open and closed, I was kind of wondering. So like let's say Leonard. This is an example I'm not put more. We need open and closed questions for Tuesday. I can't make those. Well, I can't make that. Okay, okay, ask. I'm going to say that like let's say I, I understand objectivism, and then I'm like, hmm, I'm going to further it in this direction. Okay, like is that the point where I got to rename it. Or can I say, here's some ideas but with the objectivist base. You don't have to rename anything. I mean, you have to say my foundation is objectivism here my views on on epistemology that I invented and cover but it's based on I got you. Okay, I was just got thinking about it, but time to rename it would be if if you know if you contributed so much more that now it was completely that you know that it justified kind of a new name but you know I Yeah, I mean, as you'll find out if you when you listen to the Tuesday show which I hope you will after the fact. Oh yeah for sure. Who's open objectivism issue is a red herring. It really is a stupid issue it's always I mean not a stupid issue but it's a, it's a bogus issue created by our enemies to try to make us look bad that's all there is no issue. There's no there there. And, yeah, I just got thinking about that because of when I talked to people about Leonard peak off on induction. I'm like technically not objectivism, but he's kind of like the last living well the living guy for objectivism. But, but yeah, anyway that's my question. Okay. All right, Nick. Yeah, I just wanted to ask a couple questions on the trans subject to cover the other day. Good intro, starting point, and everybody should listen to it, who has it. So, I wanted to know what, what the objective this definition. Well, this is where I'm coming from Matt Walsh, which you know we all know his shortcomings right. His shortcomings is religious bent and, but he always asks whenever there's a talk on the subject he always asks a rhetorical question. What is a woman in this documentary and that and he stumps, he completely stumps the trans activist whoever's up there. I mean I did a show on his what is a woman thing and it's, yeah he stumps them but he's so superficial. I understand about my point is that he brings out this objectivism and the relative of the viewpoints and he makes them look stupid. Right. Stupid while looking stupid himself side I'm not sure there's a huge. I mean I'm not sure he's doing a big service here. But anyway, she just, you know, they have meltdown. Go ahead, you get a question. So the question is what's the objectivist, a definition of what a woman is in terms of sex and gender because that's what it seems to embrace objectives definition of woman is there a clear definition. It doesn't have to be objective is there a clear definition, because that's that's what they seem to get hung up the the interplay of sex and gender. Right, with the access chromosomes XY chromosome, and then, but you don't understand what I'm coming from there's, there's this. I mean, a woman is a is a is a, you know, is a adult female, a female with with all the, all the biological characteristic of a woman of a sorry of a female that's what a woman is, but, but that's not the issue. You know, it's, it's not the issue the question is, ultimately, are they borderline cases are the cases where you would say it's not clear it's a woman it's not clear it's a man clearly they are borderline cases right. As I said I saw a sculpture at the museum in Rome, that was made in the. I don't know. I think it was Romans and not not not Greeks I think in 100 BC AD, so about 180 of them are for 90 so somebody who had breasts, female breasts, and and and a penis. So they are, they are, you know, borderline deviations that do exist that you know and then beyond that because we now know about genes and we know about chromosomes. We know that women are, you know, typically xx or always xx right and and in manner x y, but then they're all kind of weird things where you have xx y, or you have an xx but you're a male in the sense that you have a penis, and they're all kind of weird things going on. And that's my point. They have made the left has made a whole industry of outliers and and they've made outliers the way in which we define things and you know that's wrong. A woman is a female with with all the characteristics. Her goal is to embrace the subjectivism and relativism and bring that into play with the out large extent that the intellectuals, it is but then again, you know so if you meet Deirdre McCluskey, for example, who is was this, you know, free market economist who used to be Donald McCluskey and now is Deirdre McCluskey. She's 80 something years old. She looks like a woman you look at her and you know she's a woman she wants to be referred to as a woman. She dresses as a woman I don't know if she's at surgery or what what exactly she's at. I'm sure she said some surgery. Why would you not call her a woman. I mean, am I say that Deirdre, look Deirdre before I call your woman, I need to check your chromosomes, or the best I can check to see exactly what I mean she, there she is. She behaves like a woman she behaves like a woman she calls herself a woman. Why would I, why would I make a deal out of that why would I, why would this be an issue for me at all. Right. It isn't. Let me follow up on this. Why this aside right why are the feminists so quiet about that. I mean they fought for 100 years for women's for women's right they're not they're not silent about this look at the exception of J. K. Rawlings. There's an entire feminist movement now. Entirely. No, there's been for you for a few years now a feminist movement, the J. K. Rawlings is one of but they I forget the acronym, what they call themselves, but there is an acronym there out there for feminists who are who are constantly debating the trans movement around this issue of of around the issue of trans because they they view. They view the trans ideologues as anti feminists as making Rollins calls a misogynist and what right does a man have to define what a woman is. Their misogyny their misogyny is they're trying to define what a woman is, in terms of, you know, in terms of this relative relative relatives and subjectivism. You know, that's where they're coming from. Yeah, I mean, look, the trans woman is dominated by subjectivism as is every single movement of the left. There's nothing unique here. They've taken it and applied it to sex, which is super was super sensitive to and and and and it's it's a it's a particular insidious thing to do particularly children. But, you know, everything the left represents is subjectivism I mean this is the dominant ideology on the left and has been for a long time. It's just now applied to this particular issue. They've taken a turf. Thank you, Jennifer. It's called turf T or F. What does that stand for something something feminist. Trans exclusionary radical feminist. Oh, that's the. Okay, those are the radicals, but I'm anti the anti trans movement feminist but isn't there in fighting between the trans hard left and the feminists hard left. I mean, they don't go together. There is infighting. Are they going to eat each other up. What's that. Are they going to eat each other up. The same extent is it infighting between all the various colors of conservatives of what why why is it surprising. Yeah. Yeah, there's lots of infighting. Free for all people don't agree. What a shot. That's a tough one. It's like a square in a circle. No, they can agree on it because again it's it's a question of how consistent you want to take your complete subjectivism and your emotionalism and the trans movement as a movement again is taking it all out. Yeah, and look, it's a it's a new phenomena. They found this latest, latest and greatest. It keeps moving in that direction. It's not so much that they anti trans. Harper makes a good point. It's not that they're anti trans. It's just that they think that the trans movement called movement is nuts is is anti feminist and anti human and distorting you know jk wallens is not anti trans as she says, she's got friends who are trans she she respects who are trans and have gone that route. I mean you can agree with her disagree with her but she's not. She is not anti trans she's anti the movement, this crazy movement that has taken trans and turn it into this political political animal. It's just like this philosopher stock where I think wrote a very good book on the trans on the trans movement material goals, two of those. So what it's called. And she's not anti trans. She's anti the movement she's anti the subjectivist definitions don't matter biology doesn't matter whatever you feel goes but she recognizes that there's a real phenomena of these people who are trans and you know, and she at least respects them and and, you know, but objective isn't quite philosophy. Most of this trans issue is a is a intersection between psychology and biology. It's only in if it's in its philosophical or political manifestations does it become something objectivism. I don't have a position on. I mean as I said in the show I feel sorry for trans people, you know it's a horrible situation to be in, where you need to know there, generally in life but particularly when it comes to your sexuality. One last final thing you think the trans issue politically will hurt the left, because the rights, right with the Santas and maybe Trump will either one, whoever wins there was likely to win there. They're going to make this issue a defining issue in terms of your kids you know your kids are getting a doctorate and so forth and so forth, and this trans ideology. Yeah, I definitely think it hurts the left, but I think it's such a marginal issue that 99% of 90% of Americans don't care about it. The thing that really hurts the right is abortion. And that affects 50% of the population, not a tiny little fraction of 1% that happens to be trans or happens to care about the issue of trans the issue of abortion is something 50% of population cares about. And in that sense I think the left has a significant leg up on the right when it comes to cultural issues so the right can talk about trans all at once. All the left has to do all the left has to do to trigger voters is to talk about abortion and they'll flip to the left. Because the reality is trans doesn't affect most people, but abortion does. It affects all of us, but it's such a central issue today. But it's only made a central issue bit by the crazy left and the crazy right. Most people live in the middle and most people in the middle kind of hear about it and think it's crazy and insane, but they don't care that much about it. They've never met a trans person they don't know really what it is they don't really want to know what it is, they know exactly what it is. I mean, it really is. I mean, if you look at the amount of press giving to the trans issue, it really is shocking, given how few they are, and how little most people care or know anything about the issue. So, and, you know, the real that the people are really suffering from trans from the trans issue in my view, are the parents of teenage girls in in states where, you know, this is something that has become that is coming to the high schools and become a thing and then what you get is a lot of teenage girls who are not trans or nothing to do with trans. It becomes cool to be trans and they behave and stop behaving weirdly and they play out their psychological problems through the trans issue. The parents of those kids are the ones who are suffering the most I think from the trans issue. Otherwise, this is just a what do you call it a click baits issue for the left and right. Right. I mean daily wire. Every second story is about the trans issue. Why? Because it's click bait. It's, you know, they go into target and they find something that looks like it might, you know, but, but target is what do they call it target is what's the word grooming target is grooming people to be trans really target. I mean, by going in and there's an I always have clothes that are questionable. They're grooming people to be trans. I mean, the right is nuts. But so is the left by making a big deal out of it, but either but both of them, but most people go into target, they go buy the stuff they want to go buy and they go out and they they might see a pride flag and they go, Well, pride flags everywhere. Who cares about, you know, that's fine. I'm, I don't object to gay marriage now is supported in America by something like 70% of the population. So gay pride flags in their mind gay marriage great gates can get married whoopee and they go and they buy this stuff and they go home. But if you tell them now that when their daughter, you know, the 12 year old daughter gets raped and is pregnant that she can't get an abortion that'll piss him off. Even the conservatives among them, the mothers that'll piss him off. So on the cultural issue, I think, I think that Democrats have the upper hand, not because the Democrats have, you have good positions on the cultural issues, their positions are horrible, but the Republicans have handed them a gift. And we saw that in the 2022 elections we saw that Republicans couldn't win anything or very little in the 22 elections handed them a gift over and it's why by the way, Donald Trump, who is who gets it in some deep sense he gets what it takes to to to appeal to people He's a writing guy right he's a sales guy he knows why Donald Trump is staying away from the abortion issue as far away as he can. And he'll leave he's leaving it up to the Santas and the Santas is going to bury himself over the abortion issue as are most of the Republican candidates because he gets stuff done like a six week abortion ban in Florida. If he's the nominee, how many ads do you think the Democrats are going to run pointing out the six week abortion ban in Florida, and pointing out the dissent that the Santas wants a federal ban on abortion at six weeks. It's the Republicans don't I mean I think you know the abortion issue is a huge issue, and it's already heard the Republicans a lot and it has the potential to put them even more in the future. But there's no way out for them, they can't escape it, because they call the you know they, the base is so anti abortion, they can't offend them to stuck with it. All right thanks Nick I don't know how we got on that but we did. All right, nobody's asking questions. Everybody's just listening. Come on people use the super chat ask some questions, but to support the show social love here. Right Frank asks, Henry Kissinger is 100, 100 years old today. Henry Kissinger. What do you think of him. First thing that comes to my mind is not much. I don't like Henry Kissinger I've never liked Henry Kissinger he's he represents everything that is bad about foreign policy everything that is bad about the status quo politics of the he is a pragmatic do what it takes to appease whatever in the moment he has no, you know he has no real cohesive strategy. You know he, you know what it, I mean this represents to me the ultimate right what it kisses you win them a Nobel Prize for anybody know what Kissinger's Nobel Prize is for panel. Anybody know. Was it China. Not China. What it kisses you get a Nobel Peace Prize for anybody in the chat yeah they were your Scott knows ending the war in Vietnam. He's just back to say I'm in North Vietnam to sign a peace deal. They signed a peace deal. North Vietnam South Vietnam, and then he got the Nobel Prize and what is it three four months later North Vietnam invaded South Vietnam and wipe them out right and over the country and established communism in Vietnam for still still have it there. So that's what he got his peace price for for establishing peace in a in a country in a place where there was clearly a bad evil regime trying to overtake a decent, not a good regime but a decent regime. And you know we took the neutral side and establish peace between them. How long does it take for regime that's evil to violate its peace agreement. I don't know months. Kissinger was responsible for holding back the Israelis from from wiping out the Egyptian army Kissinger is responsible for kind of detente big big support of detente in the 1970s which prolonged the Soviet Union Kissinger is responsible for opening up China, basically the Nixon sanction of China going there and shaking hands with mouth to tune can you imagine such an evil thing to do. Not good. I'm not a fan, obviously, of Henry Kissinger, but happy birthday anyway I guess he's 100 years old I do. You know it is inspiring to see somebody 100 years old still have a mind. So he doesn't seem to have gone completely completely faded so it shows this this hope for all of us to to grow into old age and still keep keep our mind. Real quick on Kissinger. I just wanted to say that guy looks like like a real live political cartoon of himself, just to say it. He's not 100 years old let's not let's not pile up on how hundred year olds look. But yeah, I mean, he is the ultimate pragmatist. No principles. No principles no no and no really principled strategy long term. Jennifer. They just recently passed a red flag law in Michigan, you know regarding guns. And I don't I don't know if the red flag laws are different different states, but the one here a lot of people are, I haven't actually read it so I probably should but a lot of people are arguing that it's it's basically a prove your type of thing where you have to prove you're not dangerous. It's written that way that's obviously not good but do you think there could be any validity of law such as that. You know I don't know. Again, I think I think the whole gun issues of a complicated issue, but suddenly I think checking to see if somebody. It's not it's not crazy checking to see basic background check seems to me to be reasonable. If you're going to buy a gun, you know, and there are a lot of people out there in our world who are mentally unstable, who I do, you know, would be awful to think that they would own a gun now. You know my standard for mentally unstable might be broader than than the technical term. But so something I think makes sense, but it doesn't surprise me that they go overboard in terms of in terms of restricting. And this is going to be a battle in America and this is one area where maybe let federalism play out and let's see different states adopt different standards and see what happens. But yeah so I'd have to actually read and see what the Michigan statue says, before I comment on in that specific one. Thank you. Sure. All right Andrew. Um, when you read things that you really disagree with passionately think or dishonor me as an intellectual objectivist intellectual you have to all the time. You have to all the time read things that you disagree with right and sometimes they're riddled with falsehoods and evasions and so on and so forth. So this is more of like a psychological question for you. How do you not make that a torturous experience. What's your attitude towards like let's say you're reading. So some of it is torturous like I can't read Kant. Generally, I, you know, you know, if it's some things are just too torturous and too difficult and too convoluted to read, but the way I view it is I'm be I'm learning. Right. So, so it's all in education right so first. Is there any aspect of this that's true. Is there anything interesting here is there anything true about what they're saying because look. You know, it's not true that everybody disagrees with us is 100% wrong about everything. You know, just take the trans issue. I've never thought about the transition. And if I would have thought about the transition never comes up in my life. Can we not take the transition. Take, take. Take the transition. Sure, take Black Lives Matter. Right. Take the issue of racism in America. Is there no racism in America. Well, I know that's false. I know there is some racism America. How much racism in America. You know, I don't know. Interesting question. You know, so if I read 10 a half see coats, who is, you know, a big. Yes, that would drive me crazy to read that. So it doesn't drive me crazy. Here's a guy who grew up and experienced racism. And tell stories from his childhood and tell stories about growing up that are real that you know that you can you can read and you can you can kind of go. Isn't the sad that he had to go through this. And it exists in America. And then you go. Yeah, I mean his conclusions are wrong. But I did learn something here about some concretes about what is actually happening in America today that I didn't know. And his conclusions at net any house he was there's a good example because I think that his conclusions are wrong in many times in interesting ways he says interesting things he he presents it. And look, if I'm going to comment on, if I'm going to comment on races in America today, how can you not be 10 house he Western. I'm thinking of another West right so there's a bunch of them but but Tennessee coach and think about what what is the arguments are they are they true are they false in what where they're false and what what. So I take it as an exercise as interesting. And as something I can learn from and as something that I need to get better at in terms of combating or take somebody. I think I'm going to be honest about candy. And candy is a lot worse because candies. I think a lot. I think 10 house he there's something honest about him. I don't think this is much honest about candy. Um, but what's interesting about candy is to follow the path of the lack of logic right follow the path of the distortion and perversion. How does he do this how does he get from where he's starting out. That's so it's, it's, you know, you've got to read this stuff and it's interesting. So when I read an article in the New York Times or the Atlantic or whatever. First of all, I'm trying to take out of it the things that I think might be true and might be interesting and might be relevant to me. And second, to the extent that they're coming to the wrong conclusions are presenting it in the wrong way. What's interesting to me is how they're doing it and what are the false arguments and why are they a force and what leads them to have these false arguments. What is the process that gets them to have the false arguments. So I find it all interesting. I read 90% of what I read I disagree with. There isn't enough. And I find it. I mostly find stuff I agree with boring. Because I really agree with it. I guess the honesty part is really important. I mean, even in your what you just said, it's harder for you to read when you feel the authors being dishonest. It's harder for you to get value from that. I read somebody says you got to read the Jarrett Taylor that you got to read the, the, if you're going to read Tennessee coats of candy, you've got to read the white supremacist. I've read enough white supremacist to last me a lifetime. They're much they are so anti intellectual. They're so stupid that they make Tennessee coats and candy super intellectual and super interesting. So I've read Jarrett Taylor. It's it's it's refutable in in in moments. It's it and remember, you know, given that I grew up in Israel and I'm, you know, it was born Jewish. I've read the racist literature, because it was it was much of it is about, you know, anti Semitic and it's about me. So I've been interested in it for much of my life. I can see through it in a second. You know, what when I read Tennessee coats and candy I might be learning something about somebody else's perspective on a racial issue that I didn't recognize their racist in a different way than what I'm familiar with. The Jarrett Taylor and the white supremacist literature is so infantile. It's so secondary. It's so derivative because, you know, what do they have to add to mind comfort and and and so the slave the slave owner literature from the 19th century, you know, go read what what what what Calhoun said, that's much more interesting than Jarrett Taylor if you want to read racist stuff, read Calhoun, read, read the Hegelian, you know, read the the the what do you call it the. The people who who made excuses for slavery, they're much more interesting if you're going to read anything that the modern white supremacists are, you know, a boring, stupid and primitive and derivative. There's not a original bone in the body I when I did my alt right stuff, I read all the stuff I went to their websites I read the journals I read all. They're not know they're there sorry guys. I mean literally know they're there. I'd rather we tell her how she coats any day. At least at least he can write. I mean he's a good writer. Can you read Piketty. What's that. Can you read Piketty. Which ones that remind me Piketty the he wrote the Tom, anti capitalist Tom Piketty is a modern Piketty of course I'm a kid. And look, God. You know, Piketty, in many respects is fantastic because what Piketty does in that book in that big talk Tom, right, is he uses literature from the 19th century to make his point, and he brings in. I think it's Balzac or you know he brings on all the all these plays and stories to explain and articulate. And apart from Piketty. I mean, the man, the math is stupid the economics is stupid the the the empirical stuff is really really bad. But when you read your enemy and it is articulate and he's got stories to tell and he's presenting things in new ways, bringing literature I think it's very powerful way to explain things. Yeah, absolutely I can read Piketty and I have read Piketty I haven't read his latest to, but I read the original one. I skimmed over some of the economics and some of the empirical stuff, because that's boring, but when it comes to him explanatory power, and the impact of of inequality through literature. That was fascinating. That's good stuff. I mean wrong. All of it's wrong. But you know, God, almost everything's wrong. Who goes wrong, right everybody's wrong. So, and again right unless it's new is boring. So, so I'd rather read somebody who's half right and learn something new than read somebody who's completely right and not learn anything new. Got it. All right. Thanks Andrew. All right, Fred Hopper. So, I was wondering if there is a sense in which the term aesthetic applies to like the way someone presents themselves and the way they have their like living space setup and that kind of thing. I feel like I have aesthetics. I don't know if it's like an AE or just an E, but it's that is, is there a way that applies to something like the way you dress how you present yourself, like the decor you have in your house. Yeah, I mean I mean I mean the two senses in which we talk about aesthetics I mean aesthetics as a theory of art as a philosophical theory of art. I don't know is is is is one thing and I think that applies to real art it doesn't necessarily apply to the core and but aesthetics as what I would consider. In a sense kind of a broad study of beauty, right, and what comprises beauty and what is beauty and the world beauty has in one's life and it which includes art, but it's not. It's not limited to art it's broader than art is also legitimate so I definitely think the term aesthetic applies to the furniture you have and how you, how you put your room together. I understand how you dress and all these other things all, you know, all relevant to all a part of aesthetics and all relevant to life. I got you. I'm asking because I've been hung up on the, because when I read material girl the first time. It's about that second way people view of gender and the way she basically summed it up as it's like social roles that are typically stereotyped to one sex or the other. And I was just thinking that I think a lot of the people who want to identify if they're not being second handed about being part of a movement. It could be just mistaken that they have to say that they're a female, even though they're male because of the way they want to dress and the values they want to choose and that kind of stuff like they want to be preoccupied with fashion instead of, I don't know, sports or whatever and that's culturally stereotyped to being feminine. So they're like, well, maybe it's because I'm a female, but it could just be that they want to, they want to be themselves, aesthetically without getting a bunch of crap for it from everybody. That's just, that's just my view on the way the culture is handling all of this right now. And there's definitely a limit to how much I know about all this. Yeah, Nick. I wanted to touch on if you can comment on the dynamics of the Trump the Santas fight that's going to happen. I mean, the Santas paints himself as Trump light, where he's adopted a lot of his policies to appeal. You know, in actual fact. I think it will play out in terms of, yeah, Trump has a name brand recognition and as a lead right now but you know there's a 72 hour a new cycle things change fast. Trump has pending lawsuits to navigate through. And, you know, at the time starts going against them. You know he's likely to self destruct the way he goes. You're asking me to be a prophet and tell you what's going to happen. No, no, how do you think it'll play out it's an interesting dynamics. I don't think of the Santas is Trump lights, because I don't think there's any light about him. I think the Santas is Trump respectable. That's that's the way I think you need to think about he's taken all the issues that Trump stands for. And he's trying to make them respectable he's trying to present them in respectable ways. His criticism of Trump is never going to be about policy. His criticism about Trump is always going to be about. He doesn't get anything done. He's too emotional. He's too haphazard. So it's going to be focused on style and it's going to be focused on personality. It's not going to be focused on issues. Trump has won the battle for the Republican Party on issues. There's just nothing left. I mean, nobody is coming out and saying Trump was wrong on the issues. I'm going to present you with an alternative over the issues that just not going to happen because the factors Republicans all think Trump was a genius when it comes to issues. So how does it play out? You know, I don't know. But you know, I think that every time the Santas will every time the Santas focuses on the issues, Trump will say something like, Yeah, those are my issues. He's just copying me. And by the way, he's a douchebag. He has a million thing reasons. He's a douchebag and he's ugly too and his wife. Oh my God. Here's my stories about his wife. And I think the Republican base will eat it up. They love that stuff. And the Republican donors won't like it and the Republican intellectuals won't like it. But who cares what they think? At the end of the day, it's the voters who matter and the Republican base loves his combative, personal, crazy, maniacal attitude. And you say the new cycle 72 hours, but Trump owns the new cycle. I mean, let's say the Santas something happens to the Santas does something very positive vis-a-vis the new cycle and he gets to the top of the new cycle and he's cruising along. Is Trump just going to sit back and let it happen? Trump will double up on whatever it is and steal the new cycle from the Santas and take it for himself. And he's brilliant at it. The one thing that Trump is brilliant at is capturing the news and capturing, you know, is getting everybody to focus on him and to focus on what he says. So I don't see how anybody can beat Trump unless they're willing to take him on directly. And I don't think the Santas is willing to do it. You're wrong. Do you think it's gotten to the point where the right, the conservatives or the Republicans, however you want to say, prefer like they would rather fight and hurt the left overwinning electorally? I think that's possible. But I think more importantly is they think they can win. I think they think they can win. People who vote for Trump think that they can win. And look, they think he is God's gift to humanity. They think... It's delusional. ...is the savior. I know they're delusional, but why is that surprising? The left that's delusional, the right is delusional as well. It's, you know, so, you know, there is a movement that said after 2022 elections that said, look, everybody that Trump endorsed and really got behind with the exception maybe of JD Vance lost. Republicans should have won the House of Representatives by a big margin. They should have won the Senate and they lost. Trump in 2020 lost. And by the way, in 2020, Trump lost the Republicans, the Senate, and he lost the House. In 2018, Trump lost the Republicans, the House of Representatives. So there is a lion that says Trump is a loser. He lost in 2018. He lost in 2020. He lost in 2022. Why would you think in 2024 he's going to win? They don't care. No, it doesn't resonate. It doesn't resonate with them. He didn't lose it. It was the, it was, what's his name, McConnell who lost it. He didn't lose it. It was the, it was somebody else who lost it. No, Trump is not to be questioned. And as long as there is like, I don't know, 20, 30% of Republicans who believe that, and another 20, 30% who just think he's better than anybody else. As long as there's 50% of Republicans who believe this, nobody can beat him. It's a primary. And so the only way to take Trump on, in my view, is to go at him directly. It's to go up on a debate stage and call him the thug and the idiot and the moron that he really is. And to show that, that, you know, and to back it up because it's, and it's easy to back out. Let him lose it on stage because he's never been challenged. He's never been challenged. And my guess is if he's really challenged, somebody really goes after him. Him personally, he will lose it. And I think that would be fantastic. John Bolton has gone after him. Let's see him lose it. What's that, Nick? John Bolton has gone after him. Yeah, I would like to, John Bolton, is John Bolton running for president? He's not running for president, but things supposedly going after him. Who's the guy, who's the governor from New Jersey? He's going to go on suicide. What's his name? Christy. Christy's gone. Christy's really what is on the graph. Yeah, I mean, we'll see. We'll see what happens. He might get the ball rolling. Yeah. And whether Christy can withstand the heat, right? There has to be somebody who can withstand the heat because Trump will, will, will, will offload onto you. So somebody who is willing to go after Trump and really go after him, both on issues and, and like, call him and say, you know, and call out his ignorance and call out his stupidity and call out. He's got nothing to lose. You know, and John Bolton should go up there and call him out on foreign policy and call him out on his treasonous behavior vis-a-vis Syria and vis-a-vis the North Koreans and vis-a-vis all these things. Call him, call him anti-American, call him, you know, call him the, the, the, the, you know, American last president. You know, call him for what he really is. Call him on COVID. I mean, why? I mean, that, I mean, he was an absolute unmitigated, total disaster when it came to COVID from beginning to end. Nothing he did with regard to COVID was good except Operation Warp Speed, which he is running away from today. So call him on it, but not a single Republican has the balls, the guts to call him on that. They won't. So. Do you think any of Vivek's platform will be adopted? Vivek Ramazwami. Yeah, but Vivek won't go after Trump. Vivek, Vivek will not go after Trump. He's already not going after Trump. Vivek again says, no, I, Trump was great. Trump was a fabulous president. I will just do it better. You know, look, look, Vivek is super smart. Vivek is the smartest candidate running for president. There's no question about that. He's accomplished in the private sector in ways none of these people, I think are. And, but he is picked up a bunch of populist, you know, positions that I think are going to be very destructive, you know, bomb the cartels and, you know, you know, let's double up on a war on drugs that is that we've lost that has gone nowhere in, in, I don't know how many years we've been fighting it. Let's double up on it. Let's do more of it. All right. So, so here's a question for all of you. So two, two questions before we go on with the Q&A. I'm interested to see what the panel thinks. And I'm interested to see what people on the, on this super chat think. So, so you can on the chat, you can comment on this. Two questions there. Well, one question I've already done in the past. So, you know, so we've got Adam Campbell who wants to sponsor show and is looking for ideas for show sponsorships. If you for $20, if you list your idea, I'll send them to Adam and he'll choose one of the, one of them. So it's like a lottery. You win if Adam sponsors your show. And so you can come up with any topic if Adam picks it, he'll, he'll sponsor the show for a thousand bucks. And so I win. Adam wins, I guess, and you win. Everybody wins win, win, win. And so, so you can do that. $20 gets you. We didn't do nothing. I swear. Okay. So everyone got kicked off them. Well, all you non-Michigan people probably, but not me and Jennifer. Sign back. We're still here. Okay, cool. All right. Sorry about that. My internet just conked out, went to zero. Right. But it came back. So here I am. Hopefully, hopefully we can continue. Okay. Two ideas folk on talks. One is a talk on Ron DeSantis. What he stands for, what he represents and kind of analyzing, you know, the entire platform, who he is, what he is, and everything. Whoops. Am I frozen? Can you, is there a video? No, you're okay now. All right. And the second is, so that's one option. That is, um, a show on what we can learn about the, about the right, not a show, a talk, what we can learn about the right from the rights response to the war in Ukraine. So those are my two ideas. So, um, vote voting can, can, can commence. What's that? Ukraine. Ukraine. Jennifer says Ukraine. Andrew says Ukraine. I'll go Ukraine also. What about the chat? The chat seems to be way behind as if I'm still frozen on the chat. You guys can see me on, on, on Zoom, but can you see me? You know, can you? Yeah, it's, I'm still there. All right. Can you guys see me on, are you on the internet? Is any of you like on YouTube? Yeah, I can see you on the phone. Okay. You can see my phone. Okay. So I'm working. Okay. We got Ukraine. We've got Ukraine. Um, I want to, I want to say also Ukraine because of the Santas doesn't, he's like, sounds like he sucks. And outside of him being relevant to the election, I think that there were issues on which he's good on that I think, I think that he's issues on which he's good on issues that it's interesting that he's good on and where he's bad, it's interesting where he's bad. So I think, I think he, you know, it's a good opportunity to kind of review the state of the Republican party, the state of kind of the way they're going, the way you're going. The way the Republican party is manifesting itself politically. So I think it's an opportunity to talk about a bigger issue. Right. The new Republican party and, and so on. But I, you know, but it's up to, but I'm curious what you guys think. There is no such thing as the Ukraine, the Ukraine. One of the few minutes is the Ukraine is Robert F. Kennedy calls them. That's just, that's just the Ukraine is a Russia talking point. It's Russian propaganda. There is no such thing as the Ukraine as if it's not a country. It's Ukraine. I see I don't see any votes, not a single one. Not a single one on on the Santas. Mary Benz says, oh, contact should be an applying ingenuism to affect cultural change. You see the problem is that, you know, all my Ocon talks recently are being positive and presenting me as this, this optimist. And I'm tired of being optimistic. I want to do something where I get a while against the world and complain about everything and criticize everything. So, so I'm not, I'm not trying quite ready to do another positive talk at Ocon. Maybe we'll see, we'll see applying ingenuism to affect cultural change. The problem is, I mean, we, yeah, applying, applying ingenuism basically means go do stuff. That's applying ingenuism. Go try stuff, go experiment, go, go try and affect cultural change, all of you. That's applying objective ingenuism. It's don't sit in your heels, don't sit and complain, don't be negative about the possibility. Go out there and start doing things. And I've said that so many frigging times that I, I don't know. Thank you for coming up with a positive idea, Mary Benz. I really appreciate it and, and bringing up ingenuism, but we'll see. All right, let's do some of the super chats. Michael for 50 bucks. Thank you, Michael. By the way, we're still about $400 short of a goal for the show. So please consider supporting these AMAs so that I'm incentivized to keep them going. I guess I'm incentivized because I have, I have all these supporters on live, but to incentivize them going for you guys, I could just do them for them privately. By, by showing support for the AMAs through the show. I appreciate that. I appreciate that. All right, Michael, who always shows support for the show by asking tons of good questions, says, I am not, I'm not confident Uber would exist without Ayn Rand. The CEO of Uber said he was a huge influence on him. Maybe Rand is responsible in large part for technological progress and buying us time until her philosophy begins to take hold in other sectors. Yeah. I mean, I've said that many times. I've told you many times that Ayn Rand is inspired basically pretty much every founder that I owe a lot of money to, particularly in the first kind of generation of founders, but also potentially in the Uber generation. Not only did he inspire her, did she inspire the founder of Uber, but think about how he ran Uber in those early days and made it successful. He basically gave the middle finger to regulators. He basically said, come shut us down. And he, he violated regulations. He violated the law. He basically did it. He placed the burden on the regulators to come after him. And that is such an objectiveist kind of Randian way of doing it, of just, just, just snubbing. And you know, you're not going to stop me. I'm just going to get it done. I'm just going to get it done. I'm not going to pay attention to your stupid meticulously written thousand page regulatory stuff. I'm just going to go and do it. And what he did by doing that is he got so many people enthusiastic about Uber. Before the government could catch up to him that by then it was political suicide for the government to shut him down or to try to shut him down. Now, ultimately, particularly once he was forced out of Uber and replaced by, by a more professional CEO. They got to the point where they negotiated with governments and they went around the rate. They didn't go around the regulations. They became part of the regulations and like in many cities in Europe, there is no Uber. You use the Uber app to get a taxi. That's what happened in Rome. There's no Uber in Rome. You use the Uber app. It links to a taxi app. They get you a taxi. So it's convenient because you still pay through the Uber mechanism, but it's stupid. The whole point of Uber is to compete with the taxes and to drive more competition. And that Uber has agreed not to fight for that anymore. They're compromising, but the original CEO was not a compromiser. And I don't think he could have got the thing off the ground if he had been a compromiser. So he was clearly inspired by how to walk in the fountain head. He used to have a quote on his Twitter feed from fountain head. Yeah. So many people in the culture, so, so many people in the culture are driven by, by the fact that they were inspired by Iron Man. So yes, she's had a profound, profound impact on the culture. Do you feel like he got mistreated? You're on. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm afraid of saying that that's the case only because I don't know the details. I suspect the answer is yes, but I don't want to say that he was mistreated, but I want to say it outright because it might turn out that he, I don't know. He was a, you know, I think he was a bit of a hole. I think he did behave inappropriately, but whether he deserved the kind of bad press and getting fired over it. I doubt it, right? But on the other hand, I don't know enough of the facts to tell you. Yeah. Um, one of the things you get from the Iran book show is, uh, is me saying sometimes that I just don't know. Um, Richard said, I just saw the movie a about Michael about Nike signing Michael Jordan and liked it a lot, especially Jordan's mom. If you saw it, what do you think of it? Haven't seen it yet. It's definitely on my to see list. I'm excited about going to see it. It's just a matter of finding the time to see it. And I, you know, and, uh, but, but I will be seeing it. And when I do, I'll, I'll let you know. So I'll definitely comment on it when I see it. I'm excited about going to see it. It looked from a preview is really good and a good friend of mine saw it and really, really liked it. So I'm, I'm excited about it. David says, what is the objective position on accepting gifts? Say a free meal from an acquaintance. Why is an objective as position or something like this? I mean, what is, this philosophy really have something to say about accepting free gifts? No. Um, what's the context? Why is he giving you the free gift? Um, Oh, we've got Adam joining us. All right. Let's admit Adam. Um, so, you know, um, at the end of the day is this, uh, Adam, okay. He joined. Um, is it a, um, um, you know, so, so, so it's a, it's a question in the end of the day is, is it in your selfish interest to accept a gift from an acquaintance? And the answer usually is yes. Now, if you think that strings attached, if you think this requires you to do something you don't want to do, if it requires you to spend more time with this person, you really want to spend more, then don't do it. Then it's bad, but it's completely contextual. There's no principle in objectivism says, don't accept gifts from acquaintances. Bizarre. I mean, a gift giving is one of the, is a beautiful, amazing thing among friends and can be very pleasant even among acquaintances, but certainly among friends and loved ones. It's, it's a beautiful thing. So, uh, yeah, it, it, it's depends, depends on the context, depends on the reasons. So make sure it's in your interest to accept the gift, make sure it's not undermining of your life and your interest and your ability to act positively in the world for your sake. Um, the, the, the, the, the gift represents, right? So. All right. Um, yeah. If you have a follow-up, David, happy to answer it, don't objectivism doesn't give you these, you know, yeah. Do it. Don't do it. Do it. Don't, you know, it's always a question of what was, not always, but almost always a question of what is the context in what context is it give appropriate and what context isn't the gift appropriate and so on. All right. Let's go to our panel. Let's start with Adam since he's got his hand up and he just joined us. Go ahead, Adam. Um, yes. Um, I'm having trouble with audio. Uh, can you hear me? Yes. Yes, I can hear you. Um, yes, I can hear you. Okay. Um, now. Um, I was born in communist Poland after World War two and those weren't the ideal conditions for a long unhealthy life. So for that reason, I live in, um, and the epicenter of biotechnology research, or at least one of them. Uh, and artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly important. Uh, in biotechnology, including life extension research. Yep. And many conservatives were already against life extension. Leon Cass was a fellow of the American Enterprise Institute. Yep. And he's the leader of the. Okay. Um, but now if there are obstacles to artificial intelligence research, um, this certainly will stop many biotechnology research projects in their tracks because they're making heavy use of artificial intelligence. And what I'm seeing happen is that the pioneering companies and artificial intelligence want to use a crony politics to lock themselves in. They're calling for regulations. Yep. Since they're the first, they will be the ones to help the politicians write the regulations in such ways as to stop everybody else from developing artificial artificial intelligence. And cronyism is something that as far as I know has never been mentioned as an issue, uh, by either the right or the left, how can we raise it to be an issue because we have such a perfect examples of, uh, people who think they're doing good. But what they're doing is setting up cronyism for themselves that will put the brakes on AI research for everyone. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't know if what motivates, if what's motivating them is cronyism or what's motivating them is a sense of inadequacy and fear, um, and irrationality, lack of understanding of, of, uh, you know, at a, at a model and philosophical level of, of the benefits of AI. So I agree with you completely. I mean, AI is revolutionary. I just read a story today that an artificial intelligence algorithm is probably found a new antibiotic that is going to be able to treat, uh, the superbugs, you know, the antibiotic, the, uh, bacterial infections that no antibiotic today can treat that, that you often get in a hospital. And actually one of those bugs killed my, my brother-in-law, my sister's husband when he was in hospital and now they just yesterday, they came up with a story saying it looks like an AI scanning thousands of different compounds and different possibilities has probably identified a new type of new antibiotic that can deal with this. And we're going to see more and more and more of this stuff because most biotech companies today use some form of AI. Uh, it's just, uh, it's just the most effective way of dealing with the massive quantities of data that they have. Um, so, so if we're going to have dramatic improvements in healthcare, in drugs, in, um, compounds that achieve life extension in disease, curing, uh, treatments, cancer, uh, bacterial infections, so on. It's going to be because of AI. So AI is, is, is the, is, is, is massive and huge. Um, and, and life in world changing, you know, I really do think that if we let it go over the next 10 years, we are going to see some dramatic changes in, uh, in, uh, what is possible technologically, economically, biologically, health wise. So I'm a huge fan. Um, and yes, both the, the, the tragic reality is that both people on the left and on the right want to stop this. Um, I did a story the other day on the show about this right wing writer, um, part of the new rights who has an article up called, uh, you know, the jihad on AI, literally the article calls for jihad and he uses the word on purpose, right? Jihad on artificial intelligence. But we also know that, uh, that, uh, the head of, uh, the CEO of, uh, open AI who I don't think is a conservative, you know, is, is arguing for regulations on AI. Maybe he's trying to capture and give himself a competitive advantage. I don't think that's what motivates him. Um, you've got others all over the field, uh, scientists claiming AI is the super dangerous thing that's going to destroy the world and not approaching it like the biotech people approached it. I think I talked about this on a show, but the biotech people, when we, when we have gene editing, you can imagine real monstrous things can be done with gene editing. And yet they didn't ask for government regulations. What they did is the scientists got together and they said, look, let's create a code among ourselves on, you know, what kind of things we could, we're going to do and how fast we're going to do it. And we'll create a committee of scientists voluntarily internally that will monitor this and we'll, we'll help guide the process. And once in a while we'll meet to talk about new innovations and how we push the frontiers forward instead of doing something like that on AI, getting kind of the top CEOs, the top, uh, and maybe this is because they're afraid of antitrust. I mean, that's another angle on this, right, Adam, that maybe the CEOs of the AI companies are afraid to get together because then they'll be accused of collusion. But why not create a professional organization of scientists and businessmen who think about ethical issues with regard to AI? Think about bad uses for AI and how to avoid it, how to avoid them. And instead what they're doing is they're rushing to government and telling them, and Elon Musk signed this thing about six month moratorium on, on AI, six A as if six months matters, B as if China is going to stop developing AI while we have this moratorium and C as Elon Musk signs this thing, he's also starting an AI company on the side, which is, you know, which is going to, you know, develop the stuff. So, and then of course Tesla is, you could argue, ultimately an AI company. So what we need, what needs to be done is a show the world how important AI is and emphasize in every field of human endeavor, how much benefits we will all achieve, debunk the nonsense, the fear mongering around AI, particularly around economics, jobs, things like that. And, and C propose solutions to the challenges that might come about because of AI. All, you know, and the solutions don't involve government, the solutions involve self-regulation, self-monitoring and, and, and effective list. And we need to make a big deal out of this. We need to be talking about this all the time because this is, could be in this with, I say this and the biotech revolution and particularly genetic engineering, these two are the two most important technological breakthroughs that we're living through right now. And they will reshape the world in dramatic ways for the, for the better if they're allowed to proceed. And we will see it next time. Yeah. But what I've seen is that China has imposed drastic regulations against AI. And the state, and they want, they want all AI development ultimately to serve the state. And when it's private, they're putting all kinds of barriers on them, particularly on a chat GPT like AI, because chat GPT gives you information and Chinese government wants to control information. They want to control the narrative. So I don't think China is the most likely competitor. I see the most likely competition coming from the new alliance of countries within the European Union. The European Union has heavy regulations on many things and there is now an alliance of governments against EU regulations. It starting with regulations against nuclear power. And I understand the alliance includes major players like France and Poland. Yeah. I'm very skeptical. Europe is a disaster when it comes to tech. There's very little innovation that goes on in Europe. There are only two countries that innovate above and beyond the United States. Well, three countries that innovate in the world above and beyond the United States in terms of, for example, biotech. And that is UK, which UK, by the way, now leaving, as part of Brexit, the UK has just announced that the focus of eliminating European regulations is going to be around technology and biotechnology. So they want to create a real hub in UK around technology in Switzerland, which does a lot of biotech innovation. And of course it is not part of the EU and Japan, where they are doing experiments on stem cells and on gene therapy that are really exciting. And then to some extent China. And while I agree with you overall about China now being a competitor, I do think the government of China is going to pour a lot of money into it. They're going to put a lot of really, really smart scientists on it. And at the margin they will make changes. They will make innovation, but it just will be in areas that do not apply to weapons systems and things like that. Just don't apply to. But I agree with you that at the end of the day, authoritarian regimes can't be successful at this. But I'm skeptical of European countries doing anything when it comes to breakthrough technology. They haven't proved their ability to do it. Maybe a country like Sweden, maybe at the edges of the European Union, where they have more entrepreneurs, but France, I don't know what France innovates on, almost nothing. They're so regulated internally. They're so constrained within France that it's hard to believe. They have such an anti-entrepreneurial culture in France that it's hard to believe we'll see much innovation coming out of there. Israel, would you place where you'll see some real innovation in AI? Is Israel? Yeah. Although microchip manufacturing, the Netherlands is the leader in that. Microchip manufacturing machines. See, but the idea that allowed the Netherlands to become the leader in that, the idea for it, came out of Intel. And Intel realized that they didn't have the expertise to build the machine. So they, in a sense, outsourced it to what is an ASML in the Netherlands. And then what ASML does is it basically outsources much of the sub-components that have to do with this to place like Germany. But Germany creates the mirrors that they use. But these are optics companies that go back 100 years and it's not entrepreneurial new companies. The lasers are made in the US, by entrepreneurs in the US. So I agree, ASML is extraordinary. But a lot of that has to do with stuff they got from Intel and a lot of that has to do with the fact that they can outsource stuff to countries like the US. There's just not an entrepreneurial culture in Europe. It just isn't, it doesn't exist. With respect to Switzerland, the research labs are here in Southern California. And to some extent on the East Coast. They're allowed to do things that we can't do in the US. So they've done stuff on stem cells and other things that you don't get in the US because they're equivalent of the FDA is a lot more allowing than is the US. But essentially the fundamental research, they're not allowed to manufacture and sell in the US but the US West Coast is still the most attractive place to attract people to come and people from enemy countries like Ukraine and Russia can be working in the same Swiss lab in Southern California. Yeah. Yep. No, I mean, Southern California is still an amazing place in terms of attracting all these people. So absolutely. All right. Let's go to Jennifer. Thanks, Adam. I'm done for today. Thank you. You're on. Okay. Thanks, Jennifer. Andrew. Hey, your room. I put a $20 suggestion for the Adam Campbell show that was missed on the live feed. Do you mind writing it down? It's chewing reason, purpose and self-esteem as a topic. I got it. I got it. Oh, you got it. Okay. Done my list. Got it. All right. Yep. In the fountain head. There's one night where Peter Keating gets kind of a spine or a first-handed jolt and goes to propose to Katie. And he is going to whisk Katie off, you know, his lifelong love who he's neglected first second-handed reasons because shouldn't fit into his second-handed life. And he's going to marry her. And he goes to her house and he goes to where she's living, which is with Ellsworth Tui. And he kind of triumphantly states his intention to marry Katie. And Ellsworth Tui has this reaction of kind of like, well, I'm not going to get in your way. It was something that he didn't expect. He expected some big opposition from Tui, but he doesn't quite get it. And in some way that's manipulative, I'm sure. I'm not exactly sure in what way it's manipulative that Tui's doing it. But he doesn't end up actually going through with marrying her. Why do you think Rand put that in there and had him fail? God, I don't know. I mean, my sense is that it's there in the same sense as the painting at the end is there, right? It's the show that once you have adopted the second-handed life, once you live this life, once you are so committed to it, your complete social metaphysician, there's almost no way back. This is a dead end. And you might have moments of seeking out your own values, but the courage, the integrity that is required to actually follow through with that is gone. The second-handedness is just part of who you are at that point. And it's almost impossible to get rid of it. Now, by the end of the novel, Keating, at least, realizes to some extent that and is trying to work himself out of it by returning to painting and so on. But I think it's there just to show how completely and utterly devastating it is, how completely so crushing it is, so that even when you have a glimpse of your true values, you can't follow up on them. I forgot about the painting. So he returns to painting at the end. Yeah. And Roark says to him, it's too late because he wanted to be a painter, right? And he shows a painting to Roark and Roark says, it's too late, Peter. If you started 20 years ago, maybe you could have become something, but now it's too late. So I think it's too late for Keating. Yeah. All right. Thank you. Sure. Fred Hopper? Yeah. Sorry about that. I was wondering if you could potentially do an introspection in real time on how you differentiate between frustration, being annoyed, and anger, if they can't mean the same thing. Or don't worry about it. If not, that's a, I didn't expect a third question. So that was my subconscious giving you that one. Well, I mean, each one, each one is a little different. So frustrated, annoyed. And what's the one? What's the third one? Just angry in general. Yeah. I mean, frustrated is, is, is usually just it's, it's shorter. It's shorter duration. It's trying to do something. It doesn't work. It's not working out. It's, it's temporary. It's a, it's a spur to figure it out. To solve the problem, to, to get around it or to disengage if you're frustrated with a person. So I view it as, is yeah, I mean, lots of things frustrate you, but it doesn't have a lot of depth to it. And it's, and it's usually something you're frustrated with something external and you either can fix it or you can't fix it. If you can't fix it, you walk away. No big deal. Usually. Anger is deeper. It's, it is a response to a threat. And it's, it's to some kind of existential threat towards you. It's longer lasting. It can be longer lasting, but it represents, oh, there's real danger here. I'm, you know, there's real danger. There's a real injustice. Put it this way. A real injustice and injustice is a danger. There's a really justice here. And, and it really makes me angry. And it's, you know, it's not, you know, frustration is often part of anger. So frustration is a lesser in some sense. First one was frustration, anger and. Annoyed. I don't know. I know it seems, yeah, it's just a small trivial thing. It annoys me right now, but it's, it's, it's not, it's very superficial and it's over very quickly. I got you. The way I've been kind of grappling with them is, like you said, anger is injustice. Frustration is like a, despite my best efforts, it's not working. And then annoyed. I've been stumped on for a while, but I think it comes down to like, you have an expectation for something and it's just not happening. Not being met completely out of the water. It's a discomfort for whatever reason, emotional or physical discomfort. It's annoying. Like kids screaming at a comfortable chair and you can't get up right now. And that's annoying. But it's not like I'm not angry. I'm not. Not necessarily injustice, but could be. Gotcha. All right. Thank you. All right. Let's do these super chat questions quickly. So the author says, So why is all the trans ruckus only about trans woman? About trans woman, but trans man. Well, I think a lot of the ruckus is about men becoming women because men positioning themselves as women, not becoming women positioning themselves as women, because that creates the most difficulties. It creates difficulties in sports because. Now I'm a woman. Now I can compete with women. And, but if I was born a man, I have different musculature. I have different fame. You know, it's likely that I'm going to beat a woman. Somebody said, I think Mackinac, somebody said, you know, the greatest tennis female tennis player of all time. Serena Serena or Vina Serena Williams. It's like if she was in the men's tournament, she would be ranked like a hundred. So even the best in sports, a woman can do is just not that great as compared to men. It just sports are physical in a way that is more aligned with men's with men than the women. So, so that's an issue. The other issue, of course, is that, that they have been cases where sexual predators have basically said, I'm a woman and use the opportunity to go to female bathrooms. So one was sent to a female jail in, in, in. In England and then went on to, to, to, you know, attack women. So there is much more of a risk associated with a man saying he's a woman and now what happens because men are physically their aggressors and, and therefore there's an opportunity for rape. There's opportunity for sexual harassment. There's opportunity for just sexual misconduct generally when that happens. So that's why I think more of an issue is made of that. But the, the actual issue out there in terms of how it's affecting people psychologically, particularly young people is primarily it's affecting young girls much more than young. You don't see that many boys suddenly wanting to become women out of a, if you will, out of a fad, but you are seeing women, sorry, not women girls wanting to become boys more out of kind of a social metaphysics, faddish kind of impulse and, and so the danger psychologically seems to be impacting girls more than impacting boys. But the physical danger is men, you know, men identifying as female. Okay, Apollo, things that are true outside of objectivism. I mean, I don't know, gravity. One plus one equals two. It's not objectivism. Science is not objectivism. Math is not objectivism. I don't know. Lots of things are not objectivism. So objectivism is a philosophy. It relates to philosophical questions. It has answers related to philosophy. It's not objectivism is not that which is true. That's not what objectivism is. Michael, if someone wastes 10 minutes of your life, eight minutes is your fault. Well, not always. You don't always know that somebody's wasted your time until it happens or until it's over or until months later that you figure it out. So you can't take responsibility like that. It's just, it's just not right. Often it is, but not always. It's not always obvious to see when somebody's wasting your time. Proto says, what is the objectivist's definition of consciousness and why do most philosophers and scientists have difficulty defining and discussing consciousness? Consciousness is the faculty of awareness. It is the faculty that is aware of existence of the world out there. It is consciousness is awareness. It's a faculty of awareness and it's other animals have it and why do other philosophers have a problem? Because most of them are materialists and they view everything as, well, what does it mean to be aware? How can matter be aware? They're not willing to accept the fact that you are aware and maybe you don't understand the physics of it yet, but OK, so what? Lots of things we don't understand the physics of, but still exist. And of course, philosophers are forever going back to the ancients, you know, denied free will and denied awareness and denied some form of consciousness because of their fundamental materialism. And some philosophers don't reject consciousness. Shaw's but ask, did you see Michelangelo's last supper video? I did see Michelangelo's last supper video. You know, Shaw's but for referring me to it. It was quite funny. It's a Monty Python skit. The video is Monty Python, I guess, on stage. I see some Monty Python, the original Monty Python on stage in the mid 1970s. And I think Radio City Radio City in New York on a visit with my parents. I got to go see Monty Python on stage. It was pretty awesome. It was pretty awesome. But yeah, it was funny, although as he was doing it, I could think of lots of other things you could do of Michelangelo. They're related to Michelangelo. There would have been maybe even funnier. So, but yes, it was, it was funny and it was very Monty Python and very in its absurdity. And it's just a willingness to take on an issue like that. Like, who does a skit? Like an intellectual skit on Michelangelo and the Pope having a debate about the last supper. Nobody does a skit like that today. Most skits today are on much more vulgar, day-to-day common things. I mean, who has a soccer match between the Greeks and the German philosophers? Only Monty Python, right? And it's clever, right? Because the way they play soccer, she leaves reflective of their philosophy. But nobody else, there's no modern comedians that do it at that level. So that's John Cleese, Michael Palin, and the rest of them real brilliant comedians and smart and, I mean, some of it's ridiculous, but a lot of it is very, very super smart. And I'd never seen that skit before, Shazba. So thank you for pointing it out. I'm glad I saw it. Okay, Michael asks, your answer to the question, how can they be an infinite past? If that were the case, how did we get here now glitched, the audio cutoff? Could you answer the question again here? God, I have these perfect answers, and it glitches, and I have to repeat myself, and I'm sure it won't be as perfect this time. I'm kidding, I'm kidding. How can they be an infinite past? If that were the case, how did we get here now? The point of that is, the point is that there is no meaning to talk about the length of time that the universe existed, because time is something that we measure within the universe. There's no ability to step out of the universe and look at the universe and say, oh, yeah, it started here and it ends here, and this is its shape. To do any of that, you have to be outside of it. It's a shape and time, a concept that relates to what happens inside, right? What happens here, for example, time is the way we measure movement. But that's within the universe, so it's meaningless to talk about the beginning of a universe because what was before the beginning? Where did it come from? It doesn't make any sense. It's not that it's infinite and infinite is something. It's just that it has no beginning. It's just like it has no shape. Now you can't get your head around, it has no shape, because we deal with these three-dimensional within the universe. But since there's no ability to get out of the universe and then look at it and say, oh, it's round, it's circular, it's whatever, that means that the concept of shape only applies once you're inside of it, doesn't apply to the universe itself. And the same true of the concept of time. And I don't see any problem in terms of how do we get here? We got here, we're here. How do we get here? Sequence of events that led to where we are today. Did that sequence of events have a beginning? No. It's been happening in a sense forever. Right? So again, these are the kind of questions that when we have a philosopher on, you should ask. And instead you ask me, and then we have a philosopher on and people don't ask questions. So if the on cause is going to be on Tuesday, line up all these questions for on call. Okay, here's another one that I, is objectivism about verifiability while most modern philosophy is about falsifiability, finding flaws, breaking things apart rather than integrating and finding truth. I don't think that's the right way to think about it. In terms of falsifiability and verifiability, I think objectivism is a philosophy that provides you with the tools to discover the truth. It's a tool to, philosophical tool to discovering truth that applies to your life and it applies to the world out there. And falsifiability and verifiability, I mean, falsifiability is a concept in epistemology that comes from, I think, Papa. And it's just a wrong epistemology. It's a wrong approach to epistemology, but I don't think Plato was believing falsifiability. That wasn't, I don't think this is the essential difference between objectivism and all other philosophies. Lots of other philosophies are trying to discover the truth. The answers that Iron Man provides to the questions that are of interest and who methodology. Michael says, I'm not saying Trump is Hitler, but he taps into the same impenetrable to scandals. Can do no wrong ethos of a large segment of the population. I mean, I don't know what it was like when Hitler was rising to power and to what extent he had this characteristic and so I don't know to what extent the parallel is justified. But certainly there was something about the personality worship. There was something about the infallibility, the willingness that is very mystical. But whether it's, I assume that applied to Hitler as well, but I just don't know, but there's something. In my lifetime, very unique to the Trump phenomena. I'd never seen it before. Maybe I wasn't looking the right places, but I'd never seen it before to the extent that it's applied to Trump. In my experiences in life, this is pretty unique. Okay, Mark says, have you guys heard Robert Rice comments on the US default? He is telling Democrats to refuse to compromise on a bill insane and dangerous leftist. Well, yes, but you know, the whole dead default thing is a joke and a game and stupid. I mean, we all know what the result is going to be and that is that the government will issue more debt and they'll increase the deficit and it'll just keep going at infinity. There's nobody who's sane on this issue. There's nobody who's right on this issue and what Rice is saying is in a sense the truth. They're going to continue putting money and they're going to continue issuing debt and they're going to continue paying policies and that's just the reality of what's going to happen. And in the meantime, they're going to come up with some kind of charade around pretending to come with some kind of deal that helps somebody, but it's not going to make any difference to anybody or in any kind of way. And the whole idea of extending the debt ceiling is stupid unless you really are enforcing it and saying we're not raising anymore debt, period. But nobody is going to do that, not the left or the right. Yeah, I mean, Robert Rice is basically saying let's ignore and he's saying let's use the 14th amendment which basically tells the government that they have to pay their bills. But it's all a game. I mean, this idea of taking this stuff seriously, it's just the politicians playing with us and to take it seriously is unfortunately, I don't know, it plays into their sense of importance, but I find it very difficult to get excited about all these negotiations about what's going to come of it because it makes zero difference. And the Republicans, they're the biggest hypocrites in the world. When Trump was spending like crazy, they signed off on every single one. They raised the debt limit constantly. But it's Obama and it's Biden, so they're using this as a political tool. But it's just, again, this is just a game. It's a game for all of them. It's a power play. There's nothing real here. So while I saw Robert Rice and I hate Robert Rice and everything he stands for, I'm not getting excited about it because they're all, all across the board, horrible when it comes to this stuff. Trevor Smith says, great job, Iran. Gotta drop my trolling is done, Harper. Please continue your quest to growing objectivism. No question, only love. Thank you, Trevor. I appreciate it. I'm not sure what the reference to trolling has to do with, but I appreciate that. All right, we are at the two hour mark. So thank you, everybody. Thanks to our panel. Really appreciate it. Thanks for the support that you do on a monthly basis. Thanks for being here and asking questions. Thank you to all the super chatters. We're here. I will, for members, members. I will be on tomorrow to talk about Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Benini and Vermeer. I'm not sure how long that show is going to be. It might, might, might be record length because I don't know how I'm going to cover all four of those giants of art in a regular show, but I will be talking about them. And I'll be showing pictures. So I have to talk to my wife. She took the photos while we were in Italy. So I'm going to, I'm going to copy, copy those photos after my computer and try to figure out how to do it in a condensed way. Hopefully I think you'll like it. If you're not a member and you'd like to see the show, you can become a member. It's just like for five bucks on, on YouTube here. Just click on the join button and you can come up. You can become a member. Three, three p.m. tomorrow on call will be on on Tuesday. We'll have a Monday evening show at eight p.m. as well. We'll also have the news roundup on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday and Friday, I'm in Texas. So I'm not exactly sure what the program will be, but Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, we will have lots of stuff going on. All right, everybody. Thank you. Thank the super chatters. I will see you all tomorrow. Bye. Bye. Bye.