 the radical fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights. This is the Iran Brookshow. All right everybody, welcome to Iran Brookshow on this Tuesday evening here in Puerto Rico, everybody. It's having a fantastic week. All right, so we're going to jump into this whole Mr. Beast controversy. I'm sure you guys are up to speed on it, but just in case I will fill you in on what is happening and what happened and what is happening, and I figured it would be a good opportunity to talk about altruism, which is always in the background of almost everything going on in the world today. So we'll talk about what altruism actually is versus the way people typically use it, do all of charity, what place does charity have, and then we'll also talk about socialized health care because Mr. Beast's latest video has spurred a quite a debate and discussion about socialized health care. So that's the plan for today, of course. We'll answer your super chat questions, super chat questions on pretty much anything, so feel free to jump in. I am not feeling well, so we'll see level of energy, we'll see how that does. As you probably know, if you follow the show, it seems to have a sensitive stomach. It doesn't take much for me to eat something a little often. I'm not good. So anyway, we'll see how much that affects me, hopefully not too much, and hopefully we can get through the show. Again, you can use the super chat to ask questions, to support the show. We've got a target of $650 for these evening shows. You can support the show on a monthly basis on urunbookshow.com. I support Patreon, Subscribestar, Locals, or any other way you want. Just let me know. So thank you for all the supporters. We have a lot of supporters, so thank you for all the supporters. I know there are a number of new supporters, new people who've just started on Patreon, even Subscribestar, and on PayPal. Thank you. And yeah, if you don't yet support the show, please do so soon. All right. Let us let's see. MrBeast, MrBeast. Oh, yes, MrBeast. Let's talk about MrBeast. So I don't know how many of you know much about MrBeast. I mean, I didn't know anything about him until this controversy basically came to the forefront. But it turns out MrBeast is the number one influencer on YouTube. He has more subscribers than anybody else. He has made tens of millions of dollars on YouTube and all kinds of sponsorship deals and all kinds of deals that have come from his YouTube celebrity. He is only 24 years old and supposedly is worth 50 plus million dollars, 50 plus million dollars all from his YouTube activities and again, sponsorships and related stuff. So this is not an inherited wealth. This is wealth he has created by, I guess, entertaining people. It is truly quite a phenomena. Of course, he's not the only one. There are dozens of these. He started at the age of 12 and he quickly picked up subscribers. He hired his friends. He actually had his friends research what attracted people, what caused people to subscribe, looking at other people and just stunning the kind of success that he has had and the kind of wealth he has managed to accumulate. He has done all kinds of stunts. I guess millions of people saw him counting from one to 10,000, which I think took him 40 hours or so. I don't know something like that. Anyway, they just watched him count. People like this kind of stuff. I don't get it, but he's got 137 or something million subscribers. I'll take a fraction, tiny little teeny. So very impressive. Again, it started at the age of 12. He's 24 now. He's figured it out and there are a bunch of these. It's an interesting world in which you can get all these young people basically making a living by doing what I do on YouTube. But many of them are teenagers and younger and some of them are older, but a variety of different things and stunts and all kinds of things. Anyway, Mr. Beast done a lot of these stunts, a lot of different kind of projects. He gives money away. He gives cars away. He has a charity channel, which is focused on giving stuff away, but he's also done like a Squid Games. You remember Squid Games, that TV show that I really, really, really, really hated? Well, he did a whole thing where he actually ran real Squid Games, but without the killing. It's always good. You don't kill people. And gave somebody a huge amount of money as a prize. He gives all the stuff. So he does these stunts and millions and millions of people watch him. And there's a whole, I guess there's a show there just to talk about YouTube influences and what that means for the culture, what it means for jobs, and what it means for young people. I mean, I guess a lot of young people today think that this is a career. This is what they want to do. And that's great. And I, all the power to him, I think it's, I think it's fantastic. I think it's weird that so many people are entertained by this kind of stuff, but that's true of almost all entertainment. Much of the entertainment is pretty low bar entertainment that generates huge returns. So I have no problem with Mr. Beast making the fortune that he has. The latest video that he produced that has created a lot of fury, a lot of fury, a lot of hype and people upset and people, but also people supportive. So just a lot of, a lot of hype and a lot of viewers, I think he's had, this video said something like 60 million views, 60 million views. This is a video where he basically paid $1,000 to, I guess, a doctor, $1,000 per patient, I think it was, to basically do cataract surgery on patients who are going blind. So they basically found 1,000 people who couldn't afford, I guess, to get cataract surgery themselves in the United States, but really all over the world, I think they actually looked in the United States and they couldn't find that many people in the United States, which is kind of interesting. And they ended up doing it all over the world. You know, they basically cured blindness for 1,000 people, right? For 1,000 people. And so they took 1,000 blind people, gave them surgery and restored their eyesight. And as part of this, I guess Mr. Beast also gave one guy who had never gotten a driver's license, because you couldn't see well enough, he gave him a Tesla, he gave somebody else like $10,000, he gave other people money. So during all this, he also was giving money and giving stuff away. But he basically paid for 1,000 people to get eye surgery, so it was completely free for them. And the responses fell into, I think, three categories, three categories. Now, we'll talk about what I think about this and so on, but let's, so there were three categories of responses. One is, wow, this is amazing, Mr. Beast, you're the man, this is cool, you guys cite all these people. Isn't that great? You know, thank you. Isn't it great that you're using your money this way or whatever? So very complimentary, very positive, very supportive and very exciting and supportive of Mr. Beast. By the way, Mr. Beast's name is Jimmy Donaldson. Jimmy Donaldson. We'll call him Jimmy, Mr. Beast is such a, look. So Jimmy, so very complimentary to Jimmy. So that's one type of, here's an example, somebody on Twitter wrote, damn, as a person with total blindness and one eye, this may be tear up, this is the most moving act of charity I've ever seen. Another tweeted, people can hate on the high price of healthcare, I do more than anyone, but what Mr. Beast did here was astounding, powerful and should be respected. But then the second type of response was, and this seemed to have a lot of people and gain a lot of traction and get a lot of positive responses. It was basically, why isn't the government doing this? Why does some rich guy have to do this? The government should be doing this. How come the government isn't giving all these people, I mean, it doesn't cost that much money, he did it. How much money could it cost? Why isn't the government providing, don't people have a basic right to see? And if so, and if it's so cheap, why doesn't the government just provide this? So it was, here's one tweet, many, many, many like this. Why don't governments step in and help? Even if you're thinking purely from a financial standpoint, it's hard to see how they don't return investment on taxes from people being able to work again. Right. So second response, and you saw this over and over and over again, that why don't we have a universal healthcare? Indeed, one of the proposals was to make Mr. Beast, to have Mr. Beast run for president, and they did a poll and everybody voted for him for president. And the idea was that the first thing he would do as president was bring here it is. In one of the timelines, this tweet will be the beginning of Mr. Beast's, Beast becoming president and finally, finally bringing universal healthcare to the United States. So response number one, very cool. Response number two, why isn't government doing this? This is just an example of the evil of the system in which we live in. And then the third criticism of Mr. Beast was, Beast was, ah, he's just doing this for the views. He's just doing this to increase subscriptions. He makes more money off of a stunt like this than he actually gives away. This is him just trying to get attention. Here's a Twitter, one tweet about this. It's the never ending cycle of content creation makes Mr. Beast feel insidious. The underlying notion that if the camera wasn't on to feed the machine, nothing would happen. The dystopian thought we're reliant on YouTube views instead of competent government for assistance. So this combines the two. Well, somebody else wrote, there was something so demonic about this that I can't even articulate what it is. It's demonic for which guy to help a bunch of people regain their sight. And somebody actually tweet, he called the video amidst the beats doing this charity porn, charity porn. This shouldn't be charity. I mean, these billionaires shouldn't have billions. Their money should be taxed away from them a long time ago. They should never achieve the status of billions. We should just have a well text, take that money away from them. And then the government can provide all of these things. It's wrong to have the billion is provided. So I mean, I think the video and all these responses are fascinating. And a really an interesting opportunity to discuss altruism, to discuss altruism and the culture, discuss what altruism is. And I think how altruism feeds into this. And why to some extent altruism feeds into Mr. Beast's success, at least success with those videos where he's giving away stuff and so on. So we're going to talk about these three categories, if you will, of responses to Mr. Beat again, what Mr. Beat did is Mr. Beast, I keep saying beat Mr. Beast did, I need to call him Jimmy, what Jimmy did is basically pay for 1000 people to get eye surgery so they could see. All right. So first thing, I want to clarify is what is altruism? And here I want to go to what the root of altruism is not what altruism is in the culture out there because you know, the culture out there interprets words, interprets its concepts in all kinds of ways that do not necessarily connected to reality. Altruism is a term that was invented or come up with, if you will, by Augustine Comte, the French 19th century early 19th century philosopher, who basically, you know, he didn't come up with a phenomena, he coined it, he coined it. But the idea is, the idea is to some extent Christianity, it certainly is in Immanuel Comte, but the idea that of what Comte is articulating here is altruism being self-sacrifice, altruism being the service to others, sacrifice to others with no gain to oneself, no benefit to oneself. Indeed, both Comte and Comte say that to the extent that there's a benefit to yourself, it doesn't count as good, it doesn't count as moral, it doesn't count as ethical, it's fine for you to do, but it just doesn't count in morality to be moral, to be virtuous, to be good. And in this context to be altruistic means that you do not benefit from the act, that the act is 100% self-less if it makes you feel good to do charity. It's out as a moral activity. If you gain views from giving to charity, it's out because you have benefited from it. If you make money from giving to charity, if you achieve prominence, if you achieve great reputation, if you gain anything, anything, it's outside of the realm of morality, it doesn't count towards being a good person. Being a good person means to be altruistic, which means ultimately to be self-less, not to think about self. And indeed the best way you can illustrate to the world out there your selflessness is to suffer, is to lose, it's to lose, not just not gain, but actually lose. And the more visible you can make those losses, I don't know, being nailed to a cross is pretty visible, then the more virtue accrues to you, the more virtue signaling, the more goodness accrues to you, the more real goodness accrues to you, altruistic goodness accrues to you. Altruism is not what most people think it is, just being nice to people, that's just being nice to people. It's not charity, charity is not necessarily altruistic, it depends on how painful it is to the person giving. If you enjoy the charity, if charity is the pursuit of your own values, if you're getting no variety out of charity, you're making money off of charity, you're gaining views out of charity, whatever, then again, it's not altruistic, it's charity, but it's not altruistic. So I would first say that what Mr. Beast has done is does not strike me as altruism. It doesn't mean it's egoism, it doesn't mean it's self-interest, because I don't know, I don't know enough about him. I don't know what other options he had to do with the money, I don't know how much value he got from this, I don't know how important it is for him, I don't know how rational he was in making these decisions to be self-interested, to be selfish, means to be rational. So the only way to evaluate something as yes, that's a self-interested action is not to look at the consequences, but to look at how the decision was made. Did he was it rational? Was it a rational action to take? And I just don't know, I don't think it's non-self-interest, I just don't know, I don't know what motivated him, and I don't know what the process that he engaged with in deciding to use his money in this way is, but it suddenly does a strike me as altruistic. Like the options in life are not just altruism, selfishness. Those are not the only two options. There are lots of other options, lots of other options. Just being irrational without sacrificing yourself is not selfish, but it's not altruistic either. So it seems likely, so it's not altruism, why do we say it's not altruism? One is this is how he makes a living, that is his shtick, the way he, you know, the way he accumulates followers, subscribers, the way he gets money through, I don't know, his, his sponsors is by having more and more subscribers, the way he gets money from my guests as YouTube advertising or Patreon or whatever it is, however he raises money, it has correlated directly with the number of subscribers, the number of views, and this video got a lot of views and maybe gained him a lot of subscribers. He clearly benefited from the 100,000 or 200,000 or whatever he paid for this seems like a small price to pay for the kind of visibility that he has gotten. And again, you don't just measure one video out of context, but even if you lost on this video, it is one on a stream, in a stream that, you know, has gained him the reputation that he has, has gained him the wealth that he has, has gained him the position and prestige that he has. So you can't say there's no, he didn't lose anything here. The fact that he helped somebody else doesn't make the act altruistic. The fact that he helped somebody else makes it maybe charitable, but it doesn't make it altruistic. And for, you know, for objectivism, it's not any wrong with being charitable. There's something very wrong, evil, immoral, about being altruistic. Who? Gian Niccolini says that Mr. Beast once commented on one of my videos. I wonder which video that was. That would be interesting. Oh, you know, that's quite a celebrity. Maybe, maybe I'll have me on. Maybe we'll do a gag together. So the first thing to point out is, no, this is not altruism. He doesn't get any altruistic pseudomoral credit for this. This was a business transaction. You know, I can't say again that he was egoistic without knowing more about what he did, but it surely seems egoistic. It seems self-interested because it adds to his business. And I think that's what bugs people. That's what bugs people about charity, they call it charity porn. That's what bugs people bite. There is something so demonic about it. It's the idea that he helped people and got something out of it. When morality, ethics suggest that if you're going to help people, you shouldn't get anything out of it. So it offends the true altruists. It offends the people who take morality seriously. It's, wait a minute, you're trying to get me to give you some kind of moral credit by being this nice guy helping people, but my morality tells me I can't. And indeed, I think the people condemning him are some of the more honest people, honest in a perverse way, because the text from reality, but consistent with their own philosophical ideas, consistent with their own altruism. And so what is this, when this guy says it's an ever-ending cycle of content queries that makes Mr. Beast feel insidious, what's the insidiousness? It's the self-interest. It's the fact that Mr. Beast benefits from this act. Note that these people don't care one iota about the people he cured. They don't seem to care one iota about the thousands of people that now can see. I mean, I think that's amazing that he helped a thousand people see. Good for him. And he figured out a way to make this a win-win transaction, where he helped them and he got helped as well. His business thrived as well. So it's the altruism that's causing people to resent him because he's not suffering. He's not, his standard of living did not go down one iota because of what he did. And that is what they resent. They would admire him much more if he actually suffered, if he actually lost something. But then another level kicks in. So the first level is, wait a minute, he's making money. And he seems like he's having fun. And I don't know what wonder Friedman on the chat is going on and on about feeling. Is that commentary on something I said or commentary on something on the chat? I have no idea, but feelings are not philosophically correct. Feelings can be justified or unjustified. They can be consistent with your values or inconsistent with your values, consistent with your philosophy or inconsistent with it, but they are feelings no matter what they are. But I'm not sure where that's coming from. I don't know what, who's actually stimulating Wonder Friedman to engage in this discussion? I don't think it was me. Maybe it was. If it was me, then I'd like to clarify. Oh, the idea that they don't get credit because they enjoy it. That's right. They don't get credit because they enjoy it because it's a plus because it's the enjoyment that is wrong. It's not about the feelings. They're not against feelings because what they're against is what they're against is the positivity of those feelings. And when you see him in the video, he's having fun. He's giving away stuff and he's having fun and it's cool and it's friendly. And it's, he seems like, you know, this nice young kid doing something nice for other people and being happy about it or voting himself by it. And he's also making money at the same time. Yeah, that's offensive. But then they take it to the next level and they say, look, and this comes across in all the advocacy for government intervention. This is, I mean, the attitude basically, this is not what they say to themselves because I don't think they think this deeply, but basically what they say to themselves is, look, if we leave it up to the private sector, charity, private entrepreneurs will always use charity in some way that is beneficial to themselves in some way that they gain from it. And that's just, that's just wrong. That's demonic, is one of the people says, says, there's something wrong with that. There's no nobility in that. There's no virtue in that. There's no morality in that. And of course, we then have to trust the self interest of the entrepreneur, the businessman. We have to trust his self interest to actually provide these goods for people. But altruism tells us that the standard of morality is their wellbeing. The standard of morality is the other, the suffering. And the more suffering, the more they deserve. And isn't it really selfish and self interested to leave that decision on who to help, how to help them, how much to help them, when to help them, to private individuals and to private incentives. Altruism demands that these people be helped. Now, at whatever cost necessary. So why are we sitting around waiting for rich guys, and in some of the tweets it has mentioned, rich white guys, to choose to help them when it shouldn't be a choice, they should be helped. And since we know that the money resides with these rich guys, isn't it more noble? Isn't it more moral? Isn't it more virtuous just to take their money? Yeah, it'll hurt them. They'll suffer. Good. That's what they're supposed to do if they're engaged in a moral activity. And just start figuring out how we can help the most people with that money the quickest in the most expansive way. And since the only entity that can actually take these people's money away from them and do this big kind of coordinated effect is government, let's have government just take the money from these rich guys and start eliminating blindness from the world. But wait a minute, there are also some poor kids and there are also some kids who are starving in Africa and then there are people who have ear infections and then government is going to have to prioritize and decide who and it will just have to take more money from those rich guys. And they'll have to suffer more. But that's okay. Because again, that's what morality requires. It's what morality demands. This is just an inevitable consequence of altruism. So I don't like it. A lot of times you hear libertarians say altruism is fine. The real problem is forced altruism. It's cursed altruism. And my attitude is no, no, no, no, no. Altruism is evil and wrong anymore, no matter whether it's forced or not. This beginning of morality is not forced. This is the non-aggression principle. And indeed, the argument is that once you embrace altruism, you cannot defend the non-aggression principle. Why not aggress against rich guys if it helps poor guys? If altruism demands that you give up all your wealth for the sake of the poor, the hungry, the blind, then why can't I use force to take it from you and give it to them? It's worth right anyway. Altruism necessitates violence, necessitates force, necessitates growing government. And that's what so many libertarians and I think beginner objectives don't get. Altruism is the morality of force. There is no voluntary altruism, not at the end of the day, not once you can convince enough people to vote with you to take his stuff. Even if it's encouraged, it's evil. Even if it's just held by individuals, it's evil because it's anti-life. Anybody forces not the marker of immorality, forces not the marker of evil. The marker of immorality and evil is pro-life or anti-life. Egoism is pro-life, therefore it's good. By definition, that's what egoism is. It's pro-my-life. Altruism is anti-life, by definition. And therefore altruism is evil. It's wrong. Whether they engage in force or not is not the point. Morality is about you as an individual. But it always involves engaging in force. Let's see. Of course, the other thing that all of this crisis has illustrated is that, yeah, I'm definitely pro-life. That's why I'm pro-abortion. I'm pro-life because the only pro-life, consistently pro-life position, is to be pro-abortion. That's just a comment about something in the chat about abortion. And what the hell? I might as well roll you up. I haven't lost any subscribers over abortion in a while. The other, of course, thing that comes across here is how quick and easy it is for people to say, but why doesn't the government do it? Without thinking through what that implies, that implies taking wealth from people. That implies the government getting to allocate resources instead of individuals. That implies generally in a society, less progress, less wealth creation, less innovation, which generally leads to greater suffering and greater death. It assumes that doctors will just do whatever the government tells them to do, whatever price the government wants them to do it at. And that given all the government controls and regulations and bureaucracy that's created around these things, that healthcare will progress. It assumes, of course, that my property is not my property, that you get to take as much of my property as you want in order to achieve your greater good, your greater cause. I mean, all you have to do to see how socialized medicine, the destructiveness of socialized medicine, is look right now at the NHS, the strikes, the lack of capacity, the inability to treat diseases, the waiting lines, the just every socialized medicine is an unmitigated disaster. And if the instinct is, if people need it, it should be provided. Need as a right. Need as a claim. This is altruism. Politically, what altruism does is it makes need a claim against everybody else. It makes need a moral claim, which then becomes a political claim. It completely empties the concept of rights for many content and makes a right, a right to anything anybody feels like they need. At whose expense? Who cares? Who's gonna pay for it? Who cares? Who's gonna produce it? Who cares? It's a mindlessness, mindlessness that has been created by our political elites. It's a mindlessness that is created by both political parties. Government is always the solution. Government will solve your problems. Government is gonna step in. Government will do this. Government will do that. There's no end to it. And this leads down the road, not just to socialized healthcare, but socializing housing and rent controls and central planning and government involvement in every aspect of our life. Because, hey, I perceive a need over there that government needs to do something about it. Troy, thank you. Troy has come in with his $500 Australian dollars. Really, really appreciated. Thank you, Troy. That's brought us a long way towards reaching our 650 goal for today. So thank you. But they don't think through what socialized medicine and then socialized anything else they feel like actually means, actually involves what it is. It's just, again, we've conditioned people the government will solve our problems. Can't, you know, can't, can't let individuals, can't let needs go unmet. And of course, if they, you know, this is in face of the fact that he has a charity, in spite of the tax rates, in spite of all the taxes that I'm sure Mr. Beast pays, the Jimmy pays. In spite of all that, he still has money to give away and he still is very thoughtful about giving it away. I mean, this is, I think, quite a great way if you want to help people. This is a wonderful way to do it. Just pay for the eye surgery. Wow. And he organized the doctors and he organized, you know, travel and he organized the surgery and he organized the whole thing. And wow, that's pretty amazing. Good for him. And all people can think about is, ooh, why doesn't the government doing this? Or first, if the government did it wouldn't be as effective, wouldn't be a productive, wouldn't be as cheap. And where would the money come from? And who would be forced? And who, who is going to be forced to pay for it, to provide it, to do it? Look, this is a solution. Charity. If you want more of this kind of stuff done, invest more in charity. Pretty cool. All right, so I say congratulations to Mr. Beast. Good for you. It looks like this was a win-win for you and for a thousand patients. You know, it sounds like you enjoy doing these things. Cool. Hopefully, you know, you're not overly, you know, you don't feel guilty about these things and you don't hold altruism. Although, there was a tweet that he did, let me find it, that suggests, well, the first tweet he did was actually pretty good. I mean, this is, this is what he said. He said, this is the, this is the, in Twitter, he says, Twitter, rich people should help others with their money. Me. Okay, I'll use my money to help people. And I promise to give away all my money before I die. Every single penny. Twitter, Mr. Beast, bad. So he gets, he gets that, you know, and one of his fans, right, a rich YouTuber with loads more money than he will ever need actually gives back. I hate the idea of giving back. That's just a horrible claim. Gives back in his videos and people still find a way to complain. Yes, I think all that's true. But then Mr. Beast writes after all of his fans wrote or the government should do it and this should do it. He wrote, basically supporting that view. So he, this is, you know, so, so he wrote, let me see if I can find it. Yeah, here it is. He wrote, I don't understand why curable blindness is a thing. Why, yeah, why don't governments step in and help? This is Mr. Beast actually writing this. So this he wrote after he got all the complaints from people. So I don't know him kind of getting on the side of the complainers or if this is his true beliefs, but he's 24 years old. He's wouldn't be surprised if he's super ignorant other than being super, super knowledgeable on how to go viral on YouTube. He's the best in the world at going viral on YouTube. So I certainly, I certainly could learn a lot from him. I'll trade him. I'll teach him Objectivism. I'll teach him about Objectivism if he teaches me about how to go viral on YouTube. You know what? I teach him about Objectivism, even if I got nothing in return because I'm that altruistic. All right, let's see. Let's see. Do we have questions on altruism? Okay, so Cook says, do you think a reason why altruists are getting bent out of shape over Mr. Beast, curing blindness is because it reminds them that they are not living up to their own code of ethics. Thanks for the show. Yeah, I think there's certainly is. I certainly think there is a sense in which they're not living up to it, right? They're not really being altruistic in the fourth sense of that word. I think they get bent out of shape when they're told they're not Mother Teresa and they know they're not Mother Teresa. That becomes evident to them. So yes, I think there is a sense in which they're reminded that they're not living up to the altruism. And neither is Mr. Beast, neither is Jimmy, right? But that's supposed to cause him to feel guilty and maybe he does feel guilty as a consequence. Let's see. Clark Young says, it takes more energy and anxiety to make a career out of jealousy and hate than it takes to be selfish and find what makes you happy and content. Are they unaware that their own happiness in this life is even an option? You know, I think they're afraid to go there in many respects, right? I mean, so they kind of think about happiness. They kind of think about self-help and stuff like that. But mostly, it's not something they go to. I think it's for most people, it's not something altruism in their morality allows them to think about. They're just living their lives, their own happiness. Happiness, what is that? You hear this a lot in the culture. What's happiness? Who's happy? How do you become happy? It's all just feelings and random stuff. We don't, you know, you don't know. Yeah, you can do this self-help stuff, but just really make you happy. And there's a lot of cynicism and skepticism out there. And no, there's a sense in which they don't want to be happy and content because they know that if they're happy and content, they're not being virtuous. So there's this, Christianity has really rigged the game. You're either happy, you're told, or you're virtuous. You can't be both. And indeed, the happiness you're told is just this life, it's short lived, it's not real. Virtue, virtue gets you into the afterlife, virtue lasts a lifetime. And it's true if you have the right virtues, the virtues centered around happiness, the virtues centered around your own well-being. But see, Christianity and altruism divorce happiness from morality, morality is the antithesis of happiness. If you see somebody happy, Kant tells us, you got to be suspicious. They were probably self-interested. And therefore, they're not moral. They're not good people. Imagine divorcing goodness, being a good person from happiness. Well, how do you become happy? What drives you towards that? You're constantly undermined by it. DWNLogic says, oh, that's the dog's one. Okay, we can do that one quick and easy. What is it about dogs that you don't like and have you ever discussed this topic with Dr. Peacuff? I'm joking, of course. Just wanted to give you $20. I rarely catch you live. Well, I mean, I'm happy. Leonard Peacuff has had two dogs during the period where I've known him really well. And I like both his dogs. The first one was Cole and the second one was Kiki. And when I would go to his place, I pet the dogs. I play with the dogs. I mean, I'm fine with dogs. I just don't want to pet in the house. I don't want to have to deal with his stuff. I don't want to have to take him out of walks. I don't want to... I mean, I don't get enough from a pet to justify the work put into it. I find it, for me, the award is not large enough to justify the expenditure of effort. It's a lot of work. And we had a bunny rabbit that was outdoors, but then it got injured and died. And then they died. And I can tell you, Leonard was crushed when Cole died, and then, in particular now, when Kiki died. He was crushed by it. And of course, your dog's going to die because the dog's, their life is much shorter than a human life. The whole project just... And the whole idea of an animal in my home, I've got sculptures, I've got paintings, so does he. So does Leonard, but he's fine with it. And I've got a nice furniture and everything. And the dog's sitting on it and jumping on it and shedding hair on it and all of that. I just don't want to deal with it. Just not worth it. So yeah, I enjoy other people's dogs. Just don't want one of my own. And I certainly enjoyed Leonard's dogs. And we have chatted about it. And he's told me how much he loves his dogs. And he's spent a lot of time talking about that. And that's great. Good for him. I'm not making a generalized statement for other people. Clearly, pets are an enormous value, enormous and rational. It's just not a value for me. Adam says, I think sincere does not mean honest. Honesty is a correspondence of the contents of one's... Can't read. Honesty is correspondence of the contents of one's consciousness with the available evidence. Sincerity only means correspondence of one's consciousness, even without evidence, your views. Sincerity only means corresponding to one's consciousness that you say... So sincerity, yeah, I mean, honesty is concurrence with the facts. Yes. So what's in here corresponds with the facts. And what you communicate corresponds with what's in here and corresponds with the facts. So honesty goes all the way. It goes from what you say to what you think to the best of your knowledge, your best of your rational ability, what is actually factually true, what is reality. I think you're right. Sincerity is just a correspondence between what you say and what you think, whether what you think is corresponds to reality or not, is a different question. So to be sincere is to not lie, in a sense. But honesty is much deeper than not lying. Honesty is the commitment to reality, a commitment to facts, a commitment to making sure that you're thinking corresponds to reality. It's just an aspect of rationality, because rationality demands facts. And this is an emphasizing that you should only let facts in, that you should not pollute your consciousness with non-facts, with things that are unreal, things that do not correspond to reality. And then also that you should, correspondingly, you should, sincerity is a sub thing of honesty, because it's that final step between what you think and what you say. James, thank you, $100. That is very generous. I really appreciate that. By the way, we're only $67 away from reaching our $650 goal. Would be great if we reached it. We reached it this morning. Somebody came in with $2 at the last minute and made it to $250. So thank you for that. That was Enric, actually. Enric did that. He came in with $2 and got us over the hump. All right, James says, people think if you do something good because of yourself, then you can't, then you don't really care about other people's pain. You have no real empathy. Your actions come from a narcissistic place. It's not that they want Mr. Beast to suffer like Christ on the cross. That's a bizarre idea. Well, but I think they do want Mr. Beast to suffer like Christ on the cross. That is, if you really push them on what would constitute actual morality, look, who do they admire morally? They admire Mother Teresa. Why is Mother Teresa so admired? Because she suffered like Christ on the cross. She went and she lived with these poor people and she was miserable and she never smiled. And if you read her diaries, she was miserable and life was rough and difficult and the conditions under which she works were horrible. She never drove a nice car. She never had a nice place. That's what made them all. And for Mr. Beast, the idea is, okay, yes. They would like him to have more empathy and they would like to be sure that he's not doing this from a sense of narcissism, but the only way they'd be convinced of that, the only way they could be convinced of that is if he actually suffered. And of course, there's nothing to suggest he's a narcissist. It's not narcissism to enjoy helping other people. It's not narcissism to make money off of helping other people. It's not narcissism to get a lot of views off of your video. What they really hate is self-interest, the fact that he's benefiting from it. What they really want deep down, they might not admit this, is they want him to suffer and that's the only place, the only place where they would give him credit, moral credit for what he's doing. Mother Teresa was a monster and yet nobody cares that she was a monster because she helped people and suffered in the process. And that proved to commitment to quote morality, to quote altruism and therefore the monstrosity, the sadism that she manifested was forgotten, forgiven. I mean, she literally, she would help dying people not die, but then insist that they stay poor, insist that they suffer. She would never help somebody come out of suffering, let's say economically, to a job, to prospects of a middle class because the whole point where she believed, believed thoroughly, that the meek shall inherit the earth and you need the virtuous of the poor and therefore the virtuous because they're suffering and therefore why would she alleviate suffering? She didn't want to alleviate suffering, she didn't try to alleviate suffering, what she tried is to maximize suffering and part of her idea of maximizing suffering was to stop suffering people from dying so they could stay and suffer more. Now it's hard to imagine an evil like that, but that's who she was, that's who she was. All right. Yeah, I mean, we read Christopher Atkins' book on Mother Teresa, it's brilliant, it's brilliant. Hopper Campbell, people want to pretend to be Kantians while living like Aristotelians, why are they so help bent on us pretending, on all of us pretending? Well, I mean, because they don't know it, they don't hold it that way. They like their comforts, they like their thing, and then when they look out into the world, they want to see other people behave in a particular way even though they're not willing to do it, because it's hard and they're too lazy and so they don't mind the government forcing them because that's okay because it's forcing them to be good, but they know they can't be good through their own motivation. Daniel says, Iran want to leave Iowa, terrible weather, no culture, bad food, but affordable. Own my house, low taxes, I miss my home of California with great weather, food and culture, inexpensive, just venting, love the show. Thanks, Daniel. Yeah, I couldn't live in Iowa. I appreciate everything, but I couldn't live in Iowa. Ultrasadists, I don't think they're sadists necessarily, I think some of them probably are. Some of them might be masochists, but no, they're just people who've accepted the conventional morality, that's the conventional morality, it's a morality that's out there. Everybody holds. Everybody holds this morality. It's not unique to a particular type of people. James says, are there different categories of altruists? Useful idiots who think they're promoting a more humane and empathetic world than the ones motivated by envy and hatred of the good. Yes, absolutely. I mean the more intellectual you are, the more evil you are, I think most people just, this is what they were taught. They don't know anything different. They think it's humane and they think it's good and they think it's God's will and they think this is right. And then the people use that to manipulate, use that for power and control, right? I mean, look at all the politicians, by the way, don't forget you've got the state of the union address, don't miss it. You've got to get back to your TVs to go watch it, but look at all those politicians sitting there. And I mean the state of the union will be full of references to altruism, full of the needy and what needs to be done for the needy and the needy's claim on everybody else and penalizing the rich and successful for being rich and successful. It'll be filled with that and it will appeal to both types, both the intellectual types who are motivated by the envy and hatred and so on. And many of them are in the room with President Biden and will appeal to that empathetic world that is just internalized. Altruism can never conceive of anything different, but both exist. And there are all kinds of variations that people take more seriously and less seriously and all of that. Luckily, there's a lot of people don't take it too seriously. That's how we can get the kind of quality of life standard of living that we have. Not a lot of people take altruism seriously, luckily. But they internalize it. So it comes out in their attitudes, not necessarily in their own behavior. Clark, does your attitude create your reality? No, reality is what it is. There is no your reality. There is just reality. What you focus on is what will manifest. No, you should focus on what is important and what is relevant for what you need to get done. Is there something to the law of attraction in a non mystical way? I'm not sure what you mean by the law of attraction. But no, I don't think what you focus in is what will manifest. What you focus in should be guided by your values, by your purpose, by what you're trying to achieve. And reality is what it is. You don't create your own reality. Not your average algorithm. Well, that's good. I would not want to get a question from an average algorithm. All right, we are $42 short of a goal. We have 110 people listening, so it wouldn't take more than much to get us over this goal. A buck from every person listening would get us there. Also, I only have, let's see, five more questions that seem to be pretty short. And so, if you want to ask questions, if you want to take the conversation in a different direction, you can ask questions about anything, or you can just do a sticker and support the show with a couple of bucks just to get us over the hump. All right. Let's see. Yes, not your average algorithm. Why should Mr. Beast get to become a billionaire off making stupid YouTube videos? It's not fair because people like stupid YouTube videos. This is an issue. I don't know what fair and unfair is. He's providing a value to people. You might complain that the culture is a pretty low culture. You might complain that in a proper culture, he wouldn't become a millionaire. And he's not a billionaire. He's a millionaire that he wouldn't become a millionaire because people would have better values and better standards and better culture. All that is true. But the reality is that right now Mr. Beast is providing actual human beings with a value and good for him. My problem is not with him providing what the culture wants. My problem is that the culture wants this, that this is what the culture values. That's the real question is what kind of educational system do we have that creates a demand for garbage? But of course, there's always been a demand for garbage. There's always people who've gotten really, really, really rich of things that don't seem that important to most of us. Which a lot of us, not to most of us, think it's important. But values are personal. And you can't force your values on somebody else. And in a voluntary society, people are going to make all kinds of choices. And you can judge your choices. And some people entertain with stupid videos. And some people entertain with gross, disgusting, immoral, suggestions and advocacy to young men. I'm thinking of Andrew Tate. Andrew became rich by telling young men horrible things about how to engage with women. That's even worst testament about the culture. But the reality is that Andrew Tate should not go to jail from giving bad advice and from being an asshole. Andrew Tate should go to jail only if he truly committed rape or lied and deceived and committed fraud. I think he probably did. So I think he probably will go to jail. But that's, it's not as bad business practices or his business practices that I find off-putting. No, none of it should be taken off there. Not Mr. Beast. They're not Andy. Andrew Tate should be taken off there. That's only Republicans want to do that. Frank says, last week you said that scientists have self-esteem. I disagree. Try telling them their theory is wrong or their experiment fails. They can't take it. That's not my experience with scientists at all. My experience with scientists is they ask why. And they're interested in, you know, assuming you know what the hell you're talking about, they're interested in why you think that and what's going on. If you come at them from some eye-falutin philosophical perspective, then they call you bullshit because they're not interested in that. They want to know, okay, what about my theories wrong? Here's the physics. Here's the math. And who are you to tell me? And so no, that's not my experience at all with scientists. Scientists seem to be super open. And if you go to scientific conferences where they present papers and then other scientists rip into them and they defend themselves, they do a fine job. Not saying every scientist have self-esteem. But I think scientists generally have more self-esteem than others. It's what happens when you know, you challenge their physics with philosophy, which might be justified. But they don't get that challenge. They don't understand where their challenge is coming from. And you probably haven't set the right context for it. You know, that's the problem I see. And they become defensive because they don't know where you're coming from. But that's your responsibility. They're physicists. They're not philosophers. All right. We're on our last three questions. And we're still $40 short. So $220 questions are just $41 stickers, whatever. Catherine, thank you. I appreciate it. Catherine's done her $2. You guys can too. Not your average algorithm says Mr. Beast at a long form serious interview with Lex Friedman, maybe you can get him. And it would be your first video with 10 million views. Maybe Lex Friedman has a lot more to offer to somebody like Mr. Beast than I did. I wonder how he came across in that interview. I'm curious what your impression of the guy was from listening to that video. All right. Veldrin says, David, thank you. David just $20 Canadian dollars. So we're almost at our goal that I don't know that probably chips away at $18 or $17 from the $40. So it's still a little bit short. Veldrin says, I think the left defines altruism as society prospering from wealth redistribution. The giver and receiver get to live in a wealthiest society no one hurts. How does that work? No. I mean, I don't think the left defines it that way. The left defines it as, I mean, first of all, you know, they're not very good at definitions. They generally define altruism as caring for the poor, something like that, something amorphous, something, you know, being nice, being kind, being, what do you call it, having empathy. They define it that way. And then they say in order to live up to that standard, what we need is to massively redistribute wealth from some to others. And somehow that makes everybody better off. Well, it doesn't make the people who money was taken away from better off. They didn't get to choose what to do with their money. And I don't think it makes the welfare of those receiving the money that much better off when they know that their life not depends on government handouts, when they know of being told that they cannot take care of themselves, that they can't live up, you know, to their requirements of their own life. I think welfare holds the recipient and the person the money is taken from. So everybody is worse off. All right. Don't forget to like the show before you leave. We've got 100 people watching live liking it really helps the algorithm. I really would appreciate that. We're $25 short. Let's see if we can make that. This is the last question unless we get another one. Valdrin says an orgy of altruism destroying civilization is where I disagree with Rand. It's the toughest argument to make. I don't think we were that altruistic. Oh, absolutely. It's an orgy of altruism. Every little bit, every little bit of the bad policies that government institutes, everything from central planning to regulation to the welfare state to Social Security to Medicaid to the fact that people don't you know, live their best lives, don't pursue their own happiness. All of that is driven by altruism. All of that is justified by altruism. All of that is accepted by people because of altruism. Altruism is everywhere in our culture. So we have to help the needy. So let's have Medicaid, but then we need to help the old as well because they're needy too. So we'll have Medicare. And what about the old people who didn't say for retirement they need, okay, so we'll have Social Security. And what about the needs of the poor more generally, okay, so we'll have welfare. And what about altruism teaches us that selfishness is evil. Selfishness is bad. So we can't trust those businessmen because they're going to be selfish if only they could be forced to be altruistic. Okay, so let's regulate them. Let's control them. Let's make sure they don't do all the wrong things. Everything in our culture, every bad thing in our culture is in one way or another a product of an underlying, what do you call it, a view of altruism, whether they hold it explicitly or not. And so it's absolutely an oligarchy and altruism. Now again, they don't hold it explicitly. They don't have a view on morality, a view of altruism, but the morality that they hold is altruistic and that morality shapes all the government policies that we get, all the bad stuff that we get, and all the good stuff is when they ignore that orgy of altruism, when they ignore that element of altruism, when they compartmentalize and they go and pursue their own self-interest in their career and some other aspect of their life. DWN logic just accidentally gave me a hundred dollars. Thank you DWN logic by asking the question twice. Thank you. Sorry you made the mistake. But next time just don't give a fifty dollar or something, you know, you'll even it out somewhere over time. But the question is does Leonard currently have a dog and answers no. As far as I know, last time I talked to him he does not. He was really attached to Kiki, his previous dog, and he's decided not to get another dog. He's also going to be turning 90, 90 in October. So I think he's worried that he would die before the dog and what would he do with the dog. So as far as I know, he does not have a dog right now. It could change at any point. All right everybody, thank you DWN logic. Thank you Troy of course. Thank you James who came in with a hundred dollar question. Thank you and thank you to all the other superchatters. And orgy of altruism is exactly what is going on in the world. It's exactly what's destroying the world. All right I will see you all tomorrow morning. Another show tomorrow morning. On Thursday we will have an interview with Jason Crawford. Jason is head of the Progress Institute and we'll be talking about progress about their projects at the Institute but also just generally about progress. I think Jason is also writing a book about progress. So it should be fun, it should be interesting. I'm looking forward to it. Don't forget to join us for that. Let's see. Dimon just sent in a question. I find when I'm talking with people about politics philosophy I'm fighting two battles explaining the ideas I believe then thinking up examples that don't exist so that they understand it's tough battle. Also Ripple SEC please yes I have that and I know I've seen a bunch of yes Ripple SEC I need to remind myself. Yes you're absolutely right. It's what makes a battle so difficult and it's why it's much harder than people think it is. It's why it's taking so long. It's why it's so difficult to change the culture. It's because you're not only having to demolish the existing set of ideas you have to propose a new set of ideas and not just in one realm politics for example but a new set of ideas from metaphysics all the way to politics ultimately all the way to aesthetics and you have to be able to defend all those ideas and present them in a concrete enough way for people to understand them. So you know that is a massive massive challenge and it's why it's so difficult to get it across. Alex is succeeding in one narrow field and is it expandable beyond that one field? Is it expandable beyond you know what he's doing in energy? How many of the people that Alex has influenced are willing to then go all out as a capitalist? How many people that Alex has influenced are willing to give up their altruism? Some and it's great and if we can change them in one realm that's a plus. We've moved we've moved civilization forward but to change the world you need a lot more than that and so you need lots of Alex's and you need generalists and you need philosophers and you need a lot of different things and that's why it's so so hard it's much easier to do on one concrete issue much difficult to do issue and then much deeper than that. And of course energy is one of the more important fields it's great to have Alex doing that and what I need is a hundred of them a hundred Alex's. Thank you Dimon and yes I will get on the Ripple SEC case. All right thank you again to everybody thanks you to all the superchattas thank you to all the people who pressed like if you haven't pressed like please do it helps with the algorithm a lot and yeah let's let's change the world I'll see you all tomorrow morning bye everybody