 The radical, fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest and individual rights. This is The Iran Book Show. Hi everybody, welcome to Iran Book Show on this Wednesday, June 28th. I hope everybody is having a fantastic week. I hope those of you who are going to be attending Ocon are ready for Ocon. Two days, I fly out there tomorrow looking forward to seeing everybody there. Let's see, I'm trying to see if it looks like. So yes, see you on Friday, I guess, at Ocon. Looking forward to it. It should be a lot of fun. We're going to jump in to, I haven't even started this. We're going to jump in to, thank you Jeff, really appreciate the support. We're going to jump into our news roundup. I'll just mention I don't know when the next show is going to be. I mean for sure there is a show schedule for July 4th at 1.30 p.m. East Coast time on American Exceptionalism. I will be doing that from Ocon. Those of you at the conference are welcome to come and watch live. It'll be in the Chopin Room next to Attendee Services. And that'll be on July 4th, 1.30 p.m. East Coast time. Other than that, we're going to play by ear. We'll see how things evolve at the conference, how much time I have. Whether I can get a room there to do the show, whether I do the show from my own hotel room. All of that to be determined. All right, continued confusing news coming out of Russia. It's going to continue like this for a while. Nobody really knows what's going on. People are trying to piece together the different elements of it. What did the Russians know before Pig Rosny started going to, you know, started this whole thing. What did U.S. intelligence know? How much did U.S. intelligence know? How much of this was already, how many of the generals in Russia already were involved? So a bunch of stuff going on. Not going to talk about it today, just because it's just the same thing. Nothing fundamentally has changed. And as more significant information comes out, when more significant information comes out, and when I can see up implications to either the regime in Russia or in Belarus or the war in Ukraine, I will update you as that progresses. All right, a reminder, use the super chat to ask questions. You can also support the show with the stickers. Jeff has already done so. And, okay, so I guess, you know, I've been looking for, I've been looking for, you know, spending the morning looking for stories to talk about. And I was really expecting the Supreme Court to come down with a ruling today. I'm disappointed and surprised we haven't heard yet. Maybe we'll hear, maybe we'll still hear later today. Maybe they're waiting until the end of the day. Maybe it'll only be done tomorrow. But the affirmative action case is going to be decided in the next day or two. And that could be, depending on the scope that the Supreme Court actually embraces, how much they want to do here to the extent that they're willing to eliminate affirmative action completely. I mean, this could be massive. This could be a huge case. Maybe one of the most significant cases, certainly since Dobbs, that the Supreme Court has done. So I'm in suspense. I know many of you are probably in suspense. This could be, if you believe, as I do, that much of woke and much of the DEI is ultimately driven by civil rights law. And civil rights law really, you know, guided and framed around affirmative action. Then, and that this is a culture that couldn't have, that came about because of affirmative action. Getting rid of affirmative action is one, is probably the most important thing. The most important thing we can do in the fight against woke. And whether the Supreme Court does it or future Republican president does it, it has to be done. Because it will slowly, not immediately, this takes time, just like it took time for affirmative action to become DEI. DEI, the DEI stuff will be unwound over the next decade if we get rid of affirmative action. So this is huge for the culture, huge for employment law, huge for students. So how the Supreme Court rules on this is going to be big and whether they will narrowly, and then it won't be that important. It will affect education, but not much more. Or whether they take an expansive view of it, that is going to be really, really, really interesting. And anyway, we will see. We will see. There will be no riots as a consequence of the Supreme Court ruling. All right. No matter how it goes. All right, so looking, it turns out that the biggest news story right now, the biggest news story in America right now and over the last few days, I've been avoiding it because it's kind of stupid, but it is, it's big. And I think, I actually think it says a lot about the culture and the world in which we live. And that is the cage fight. You know, Elon, you know, has challenged Zuckerberg to a fight. Zuckerberg has accepted, and they are supposedly going to engage in a physical, I guess, no rules, whatever, cage fight with, you know, some time, some time. Not clear exactly when and how it's going to proceed. Elon Musk's mother is trying to cancel it. Is trying to dissuade the parties from doing it. But Elon and Zuck keep doubling up on it and he keep recommitting to actually doing it, right? And no, this, you know, everybody's talking about it. Yeah, it's a joke really. Is it a joke? Not clear at all. It's a joke. It's, we'll see. Hopefully it's a joke. I think it would be great if it was a joke. But no, I mean, this is headlines everywhere. You know, both Zuckerberg and I guess Elon Musk have been training with Lex Friedman, who is a jiu-jitsu. I guess Zuckerberg is jiu-jitsu. Elon Musk is just big and strong. That, I guess, is the idea of this battle. But these guys seem serious. They seem like they want to do it. And indeed, both of them, you know, take this idea of fighting it out seriously. It appears that way. And it's just, and everybody's excited about it. Everybody thinks this is fantastic. Everybody thinks this is, you know, this is wonderful. And it has to do with, I mean, this is really an indication of where we are in the culture, right? I mean, the reality is that, you know, what we needed was not so much a documentary on what is a woman. It's kind of self-evident and obvious in the context of the way the documentary was done. What we really need is some real thought, and what is a man? And what is masculinity? And because the real problem in our culture, much more than with women, the real problem in our culture is not women, it's men. It's, on the one hand, the wimpy nature of men. And the other part of it is this false sense of, in order to counter the wimpy nature, we need to come, you know, we need to come buff and we need to be able to fight. Supposedly, this all started because Zuckerberg is launching in a competitor to Twitter. They can have a Facebook Twitter thing, as if Twitter is not complicated enough, as if Twitter doesn't have enough features there already. They can add a Twitter-like feature to compete with Twitter. I guess in London like that, there was exchange of words, and there was a challenge to fight, and they are talking about fighting. Dana White is suggested hosting it. Now, I hope it's all a joke. Supposedly, the media is not taking it as a joke. There are, you know, significant articles all over the place about this. And it fits kind of the new persona that Elon Musk has really brought since he took over Twitter. Kind of a tough guy, CEO, takes no BS, fires whoever needs to be fired, and talks everything up, talks, talks, talks. And says whatever comes to his mind. A bit of a caveman mentality. Jennifer is right. And it seems like that is spreading throughout Silicon Valley. Everybody is kind of competing and saying, whoa, if Elon can do this, maybe I should too. Maybe I can too. I need to be a man after all. I need to stand up and do stuff. So you're getting more and more of this. And I think this really is a question of kind of the crisis of manhood and what does manhood represent. And these guys, just being rich, just being smart, just being amazing, amazing creators of value, is somehow not enough. It's somehow, you know, they have to, it has to manifest as something visual and physical. Because we live in a culture where sadly we don't associate masculinity with value creation, wealth creation, great business achievements. I mean, I wish we did. I wish we did. So it's, I hope it doesn't happen. It's pathetic. It's ridiculous. It's an expression of weakness. It's an expression of a lack of manliness. To fight for no reason is stupid. And to degrade every issue one has to a physical confrontation is, again, weakness. It's a diversion for everybody else, but what is it for them? And to do this in public is just like they're begging for attention as if they don't have enough. What's the point? Now, this issue of manliness is kind of interesting and is kind of, is interesting. And I thought it would be a good opportunity to mention a new book on what it means to be a man by my favorite senator. My favorite senator, as you know, is Josh Hawley. And the book is called Manhood, the Masculine Virtue American Needs. And, you know, and this is kind of a summary of the book. American men are in crisis, Josh Hawley declares, in a speech, in a search for solutions, appears to have begun and ended this way. Quote from the book. The Bible story is an epic that speaks directly to the purpose of men. The Bible's epic has forged my sense of meaning and purpose and reality, so much so that it would become, when it comes to life's guides, it is nearly the only guide I can think to offer. The solution to all questions of manhood is to become a servant of the Christian God. To quote, at the center of his creation, God placed a garden, and in the garden a man. And he instructed the man to cultivate that garden, to protect it and to build it, out to it, to expand it into all the world. That was the man's calling, his sacred duty and his purpose in life. And then, you know, this might have some relevance to what we're seeing. Another quote, in the battle with evil, it is the proving ground of a man's character. So, the battle with evil is the proving ground of a man's character. Genesis is direct about this. To build the world into a temple, he must stand in evil's way, starting in his soul. That is the truth today's men need to hear. We're in trouble, people. This is a U.S. senator. And, you know, this is his manifesto. It's kind of scary, scary. Jeff says, Justin Trudeau had a boxing match against the conservative politician to make a point. All conservatives thought Justin would lose. We all lost, sad. Yeah, it's absolutely sad. It's absolutely sad when this is the way anybody thinks that people should handle conflict, the disputes, or even entertainment. I generally am not a fan, not a fan of violent sport, period. I don't like boxing. I don't like MMA or whatever it's called. I don't like these sports. I think learning, jiu-jitsu, learning these things, practicing it makes a huge amount of sense. Going into a cage and beating people up. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it for men. And I think it's even more pathetic, even worse and more ridiculous when women do it. So I'm not a fan of violence as entertainment in sports. And I think the amount of violence we have in our movies is absurd and ridiculous. People are concerned about sex in movies. I think sex in movies is fine. I'm much more concerned about violence in movies and turning violence into entertainment. Turning violence into something that's just, it's fine. It's okay. If you watch some of the footage out of Ukraine, I don't know how many of you do, but there is amazing footage out of Ukraine of people killing each other. It looks like a video game. And it's people really actually in the field because people are waving cameras and posting it on various channels. People are literally killing each other. Not entertaining. Not entertaining. Pretty horrific. All right, we will wait and see. Maybe I'll do a live commentary if the cage fight actually happens. Maybe we'll do a live commentary in the Iran Book Show. No, we won't. I don't know what's going on. There seems to be some fear of a communist invasion in the United States. Two of the leading Republican politicians have announced that they will not, one, that it will not allow communes into the country. The other, the communists and socialists are not welcome in Florida. Leave, don't come. I mean, this is all within 24 hours. Rick Scott, Rick Scott, the senator from the state of Florida did a video that has gone, I don't know, watched millions and millions of people. And, you know, Rick Scott has basically said in this video that if you're a communist or socialist, don't come to California. Don't come to Florida. Don't come as a tourist. Don't come to live there. We don't want you. We don't like you. Please stay away. What's the hell's going on? Are conservative trans? Okay. Is it just socialist? I mean, you know, if you're not a socialist and a communist, but you are a drag queen, is that okay in Florida? What exactly is the issue? You know, I hate communists. Socialists, just too many of them. And it needs to be fought. But communists, clearly evil. But what's the video for? Who's it trying to rally? What statement is it making about what? It's just bizarre. Now, there's some rumors that Rick Scott might also join the unbelievably crowded field running for president, which is just bizarre. I don't know why we have so many candidates on the Republican side. It's almost like, you know, Trump is paying all these people to run for president so that they split all the anti-Trump vote and Trump just waltzes in. So Rick Scott tells, I watched the video. It's like, where is this coming from? What is the deal? This is how you boast to your credentials as a capitalist or a freedom lover. Then tell us what freedom and capitalism mean to you. Don't say, you're not welcome. Don't come here. Are we going to now institute at the border of Florida loyalty oaths or tests to see how socialist you really are? Don't get it. Donald Trump then, of course, within almost at the same time, I guess, I don't know if they coordinated this, says that when he becomes president, one of the things he's going to do in terms of immigration regulations is he is going to bar communists and Marxists from entering the country. Communists and Marxists. He's going to use section 212f of the Immigration and Nationality Act. This is what he said, to order my government to deny entry to all communists and Marxists. How do you identify them? Do you go dig into their past if they were communist once or not? Is that okay? I mean, listen also to how it's phrased, right? Those who come to enjoy our country must love our country. We're going to keep foreign Christian-hating communists, Marxists and socialists out of America. I wonder if you're a Christian-hating capitalist, like maybe me, if that counts as well. It's amazing how we just threw in the Christian-hating right there. I would argue communists are not that Christian-hating, but there it is. Are we now again going to have a test at the border to verify how committed you are to a particular ideology? Are we going to rummage through your history? Is there now going to be an ideological test? Is the government therefore going to define what is acceptable and what is unacceptable, what is pro-America and what is not? What loving America means and what loving America doesn't mean. Who is going to make these decisions? How are they going to make them? Are we going to ban leftists when Trump is president and then are we going to ban Christians when, I don't know, you know, some Democrat is president? Are we now going to violate freedom of speech, freedom of ideas? Now it is true that if you're a member of the Communist Party, you cannot gain citizenship in the United States. But a political party is different than just holding an ideology. So this is bizarre. It's nuts. It's these games these politicians play. You know, it was like the Muslim ban that Trump put in, which is just nonsensical and just for show. You know, we're going to keep foreign Christian-hating communists, Marxists and socialists out of America. But don't worry, you atheist Christian-hating capitalist. You're safe for now. Because once you start using ideology as a framework for accepting people into the country or not, any president can use any ideology to frame this. And this is supposedly by executive order. Anyway, just nuttiness. And again, this man, Donald Trump, is the favorite, at least to be by far, to be the Republican nominee. I mean, he's not even close and in the latest polls, he is even beating the Santas by bigger and bigger margins. All right, Bud Light, as you know, Bud Light, you know, sent some Bud Light cans to a trans person. And this person made a video and the conservative flipped out. Bud Light is now supporting our enemies and declared a ban on Bud Light. Now, I've declared a ban on Bud Light, I don't know, for 40 years, because it just sucks as a beer. I'm not a big beer drinker, but I can certainly hate Bud Light. I mean, or Budweiser generally, it's just not good beer. But put that aside, Bud Light is struggling. Budweiser is struggling significantly. And the boycott on Budweiser has dropped Bud Light from the best-selling beer in America, and I think Modelo or something like that is the best-selling beer in America. But, you know, this boycott about conservatives, right? I mean, the passion, the energy, the excitement that they bring to boycotting Bud Light or boycotting Target is just stunning. I mean, it really is. This is the issue, this trans issue, this, I guess, pride issue, gay rights issue, is more galvanizing to, you know, to Republicans or right-wingers than any other issue I have seen. It's, in some ways, bigger than abortion, and it's certainly bigger than economic liberty or any other kind of liberty. It's, you know, this is their thing. And as a consequence, they're willing not to buy their beer. A consequence of that, of course, is that Budweiser is struggling financially and struggling to get back people who they've lost. As a consequence, Bud Light is now offering $15 rebates for the July 4th weekend. Basically, they're offering you beer for free. I encourage you, those of you who want so, you know, it's free. So this weekend you can get free beer because Bud Light made a mistake in its marketing by appealing, by appealing or by recognizing a trans influencer by the name of who was here a minute ago. Anyway, it doesn't matter. I just don't remember. Dylan, Dylan, Dylan something. Dylan Mulvaney, Dylan Mulvaney. They didn't even really hire him. They just sent him a bunch of things for free. Anyway, it doesn't, yeah. And then, of course, Budweiser has also launched a brand new campaign. Again, trying to smooth things over. And this campaign is all about its workers, how hard they work, how good people they are, how important they are, how don't blame them for those executives and their love of the horrors, right? Of the horrors, right? There's no principle here. I mean, there is a principle here, but it shows you the shallowness superficiality and just the whole ridiculous nature of the so-called conservative cause these days. If these are the issues that get them excited and thrilled and up in arms and ready to fight, these are the principles they're willing to go to barricades for. As we say, God help us. God help us. All right, finally, kind of a good op-ed in the Washington Post, that's rare. And this has to do with just the fact that in America today, you can't get anything done. Like, you can get, you can build anything. You can't create anything. You can't make anything. And, you know, it's pathetic. This to me is a much bigger issue than whether Caitlyn Jenner is a man or a woman. I don't care. I don't. Much more interesting to me is the fact that we can't build any infrastructure. We can't improve our own lives by improving the world around us by building and creating and everything takes forever and unbelievable costs. American infrastructure has fallen way behind other countries in the world, countries that are a lot poorer than us, because we can't get anything done. And this op-ed in the Washington Post actually illustrates an example of this. Now granted, this is all government projects. Infrastructure in the U.S. is a government thing has been at least since the 1930s. But at least in the old days, they got stuff done. On July 7th, 1930, right? The previous secretary sent an order to Elwood Mead approving or directing the beginning of the construction of the Boulder Dam. I mean, the project is stunning. It is the Hoover Dam as it stands today. This is a year and a half after Congress already authorized the project. So it took a year and a half from Congress authorizing it to actually breaking ground, record time. You know, this was complicated because you had to allocate water rights. You had to settle the financing. You had to find the workers. I mean, this is complicated. A year and a half is quick. By March 4th, 1931, the contracts were put out to bid for the actual building. And that process took one week. One week. By April, the contractor had to go ahead. In September 30th, 1935, the dam was finished. Two years ahead of schedule. Ahead of schedule. Four years to build the tallest dam at the time in the world. I don't know if you've ever been to Hoover Dam. You should go if you have an opportunity. It's in a magnificent civil engineering project construction. It cost $2 billion in today's dollars. Take an example, a counter example today. The building of the New York Second Avenue subway line. This is a subway line that they've been talking about forever building. Basically going from Harlem all the way down to Wall Street along Second Avenue. In 2000, the State's Metropolitan Transportation Authority allocated money to build a full-length subway line. Right? That was in 2000. It took seven years, seven years, for the agency to obtain the financing, pass environmental review, and secure federal approval. Ground was finally broken in April 2007, seven years later. In the same amount of time, the Hoover Dam was already most of the way up the walls of the canyon. It was almost complete. Construction of phase one, just phase one, which includes three stations and 1.8 miles of tunnel. Only 1.8 miles of tunnel. It took ten years, five years longer than expected, and cost about four and a half billion dollars. Well over two times what the Hoover Dam costs. Completing the whole eight and a half mile is expected to cost about 17 billion. Though by the time this line is complete, which could be just in time for the return of Haley's comment, the article writes, who wrote this? I should give her credit. Megan McArdle. She says, you know, anyway, 17 billion dollars. They've just started the eminent domain process for phase two, which will run an additional mile and a half from 96 to 125th Street. So they'll have just over three miles done. Who knows in another seven, nine, twelve, twelve years? Unbelievable. So that's America today. These are things we should be concerned about. Can't build a subway. Can't build anything. They just approved a budget in Sacramento, the California state budget, balance budget. The one thing they cut, the one thing they cut is a 30 billion dollar project for a big civil engineering project to bring water, to better allocate water within the state. A project that's very much needed, you know, involves a tunnel and involves, but yeah, this is what we used to do. That's how you prevent droughts. You take water from where it is to where it's supposed to be. All right. So yeah, let's be super, super concerned. The only issue around transgender that I think we should be concerned about, we should have a strong opinion about, we should be fighting about is what they do to children. That is awful. What adults choose to do to their body, we can, in many cases, should condemn morally, but from a political perspective, just let people do what they want to do. It's horrible. It's sad. It's mainly sad. It's actually tragic. But why do we care so much? I mean, I get caring about children. But beyond that, why do we care so much? But this is the entire agenda these days. Other than banning communists and socialists from Florida in the United States, or preventing them from coming in. I guess Florida didn't say they'd prevent them from coming in. They just asked them not to come in. All right, Tom. Thomas Schubert. A woman told me the original meaning of toxic masculinity was identifying twisted versions of healthy masculinity that hung men. But it got appropriated to mean any behavior by man that a feminist didn't like. Yes. I mean, it basically means any kind of assertiveness, any kind of physicality. And there is such a thing. There is such a thing, I think, as toxic masculinity, as you said. Twisted versions that emphasize physical force, that emphasize violence, that emphasize which are harmful to the men and to the people on the other side of receiving it, obviously. But it's become something basically to be a man is to be toxic. To be masculine is to be toxic. To take risks is to be toxic. Andrew Tate is an example of toxic masculinity. But Andrew Tate is going to spend, it looks like, a long time in jail. As a consequence of that, it's bad for him. It's also bad for the women he abuses, but it's bad for him. But the whole issue of what the solution is, is, again, we've got to catch up. But I've talked about this with God, with women. But we've got to catch up to the fact that changing the environment, changing the world, being masculine now is a lot more about using your mind than it was in the Bronze Age. In the Bronze Age, it was all about how many people you could kill? How many people you could slaughter? Now, it's, how much value can you create? How innovative can you be? Andrew Tate will now go to jail for abuse, although abuse can be illegal. Abuse is a pretty general term, which includes physical abuse. Abuse is not just mental abuse, it can be certainly physical abuse. How does he abuse women? Just read what he writes about women, read some of the dialogue that he himself, some of the tweets that he himself has written about how he treats women. You know, and how he manipulates them and how he abuses them. And then, of course, he's now being charged for rape and human trafficking and all kinds of things. By the Romanian authorities, we'll see in trial where he gets. But in terms of the kind of person he is, he is a horrible, toxic, you know, abusive human being. You can just, you can tell by, and shallow. And yes, he says some things because he's anti-left that you guys admire. I get it. Well, let's see. There's going to be a court case. That's what courts are for. Now, do you trust the Romanian courts? Not particularly. So we might never know if he's actually guilty of rape or not. But Romanians think they have enough of a case on them. And, you know, maybe it's just all corruption. Maybe somebody's paid them to do this. I don't think the Romanians are particularly in the feminist pocket. There's something going on there. But yeah, would it be surprised that he raped women? No. No. That's the aura he gives. He presents it as if... Yeah, why would you even be surprised that he wouldn't view it as OK based on the things that he says and how he says them? I'm very, very much opposed to everything and Routate stands for. And this is exactly the point. So many people out there in the culture are at the post-Neanderthal level, but they haven't actually arrived in the 20th century, never mind the 21st century. And they still have a view of women that is post-Neanderthal, but certainly not 21st century. And they have a view of men that is Bronze Age and not 21st century view of men. And this is what is causing all this confusion. This is why you've got so much angst around not so much what is a woman or what is a man, but what is masculinity and what is femininity? What does it mean to be a man? What does it mean to be women? And those of you holding on to your Bronze Age view of masculinity and femininity, good luck. Good luck. J.J. Jigbiz. There used to be a clanmation show on MTV in the 90s called Celebrity Death March. Musk versus Zuckerberg would have fit perfectly. Maybe they were right when they criticized MTV and TV in general for slowly corrupting the culture. There's no doubt that TV contributed to the cynicism and the ugliness of the culture as we see it today. The subjectivism, that anything goes, and I think the acceptance of certain types of violence that exist today. Rand have really firm views of masculine femininity and yet how many of you men out there, most of you men out there are unbelievably intimidated by Dagny Taggart. There's no way you could handle a Dagny Taggart. She is way scarier than any so-called feminist you mean today. You don't come anywhere close to matching up to her. Your view of femininity doesn't stand up to Dagny Taggart. So here's a woman, Ayn Rand, who had a very clear view of femininity and masculinity. And yet she created one of the strongest, most powerful, most able women in all of human literature. A woman that doesn't, of course she's feminine. Of course Dagny is feminine. Dagny is the symbol of feminism. The embodiment of feminism. Rand created it that way. And if you don't see Dagny as feminine, that's because you have no understanding of what femininity he is. You have a caricature. And again, you're still at the Bronze Age. Grow up people. We're in the 21st century. Cook says, Josh Hawley is a goof. A very, very dangerous goof. Very dangerous goof. J.J.Jigby's, can you contrast masculinity in the Homeric poems versus the Bible? No. I mean, the Homeric poems are, you know, is masculinity vis-a-vis Bronze Age? I mean, it's during the Bronze Age with these battles and fights exist. Yeah, you really, that would be a show, right? You would have to give me a thousand bucks to do a show on contrasting masculinity, Homeric poems versus the Bible. That's work. You would have to really think that one through and refresh a little bit. But, you know, I'm just thinking about it quickly. I'm getting an outline of what I think it is. But, you know, also the vision of women, both in the Bible and in the Homeric poems, both images would stun you because you've got Odysseus's wife, who is a cunning, very smart, very courageous woman. And then you've got some biblical females that are, ooh, be careful, people. Be careful. Again, not women. Many of you could handle. And Lex is interviewing RFK Junior. Isn't part of Lex's popularity a work like and willingness to let the media tell him who is acceptable to talk to? Yeah, I mean, Lex, I think what part of his pop, well, I don't know. I think his popularity stems from the length because he hasn't in the past. He didn't make his name interviewing controversial people. Lex made his name interviewing people like scientists and AI people and physicists. And using his long format for three hours at a time. So it's the length, the thoughtfulness and the focus on questions and issues people didn't do. I mean, he hasn't interviewed that many scientists. He's only gotten to controversial things, I think, since post-COVID. I mean, I guess he interviewed me. That's pretty controversial, but that was kind of in the midst of COVID, my first interview with him. So I don't think Lex's popularity has to do with anything with regard to the media. I think he decides who he wants to interview. I think because he wants to be engaged with the, particularly now, he wants to be engaged with the debate that is happening in the culture. And wherever that debate goes, he wants to be a part of it. And he wants to give people opportunities to express their views in kind of a very, very long format. But, and I think he's, again, his popularity is both the format, which is pretty unusual when he started it, and the type of people he originally interviewed. It still does interviews. Most of the people he interviews are unusual people. They're not the people you see on Fox News, on CNN, on CNBC. They're not politicians. They're not our FK Junior. FK Junior is an unusual guest for, you know, for Lex. And then at some point he got to the size where he could have Elon Musk repeatedly. He could have Zuckerberg on there. He could have really the big names in our culture, and that elevated him to the next level. But, you know, yeah, Lex is, Lex is, Lex is great. I mean, and I think he does the interviews very well. And I'm very, very curious how much he'll push RFK. I mean, he certainly, I was happy that he really pushed Kanye. When he interviewed Kanye, he really pushed him on the anti-Semitism. I'm curious whether he will push RFK on these kind of issues because RFK needs to be pushed if he's going to be interviewed. If you're going to interview him, you got to push him. But RFK is a lightweight and a, I mean, you could see that when Alex just crushed him. And a really, really bad guy, a really, really bad guy on every level. You know, in every, in terms of his opinions, in terms of his views, he is a typical leftist and, you know, wishy-washy on a bunch of things because on many things, he's kind of a typical leftist pragmatist. Frank, why is China putting military trainers in Cuba? Well, because it's a way to intimidate the United States. It's a way to be close to the United States, just like we have, we have Guam and we have Taiwan. They, you know, it's just, it gives them another point of leverage against the United States. And it's just a way for them to flex their muscles and it's a way for them to tell the United States, you're not the only ones with global reach. We can also get to your shores. Don't mess with us. We're right here in Cuba. Jordan Peterson, Michael says, Jordan Peterson just did a talk with Dave Ramsey. His moral defense of capitalism actually wasn't bad. Would be worth reacting on your own show. Yeah, I'll watch that. I don't, you know, I generally, Dave Ramsey gives mostly pretty good conventional advice that is appropriate for most people. I, you know, I'm not enamored with his advice. I wouldn't follow it, but for most people, I think it's fine. And Jordan Peterson is pathetic when it comes to defending capitalism. I mean, worse than pathetic. You got to see his debate with Zizek to see how bad, how bad his defense of capitalism is. So it would be interesting to see how they address it. I'll, I'll let me copy paste this. I'll look for it. And maybe, maybe social, social. Yeah, and I don't think Dave Ramsey's investment advice is particularly good. You know, it's good for people who are irresponsible. It's good for people who can't think for themselves. It's good for people who, you know, who are going to get it, who are going to do really even stupid stuff. He rains them in. He rains them in. John is Caitlyn Jenner a man or woman? I'd say she neither at this point. I don't know. Is Caitlyn Jenner actually, you know, had surgery? If she hasn't had surgery, then, you know, it's still probably color and hormones and all that a man. But I don't think she's never going to be a woman. But neither here nor there. That is possible. A man, spend most of her life as a man, but has taken away some of the things that make her a man. Let's see. Prokey. Shouldn't discrimination be allowed on private property, even though it's morally corrupt? Therefore, affirmative action shouldn't be completely ruled out, maybe only on public universities. No, the point is that right now, it through a variety of different ways in which a civil rights law applies. Affirmative action is implemented all over the place. It's implemented. The original affirmative action was implemented with government contractors who are private. And yet, in order to work with the government, you had to follow these things. Now, almost every company today has some work for the government. And they've almost every company today has to follow some form of coerced affirmative action. And it's coerced by the courts. It's coerced through lawsuits. So, yes, you can do whatever you want on your private property. I agree. But that's not the case today. The case today is that in education and in many, many, many other sectors, the government is coercing you to have a diverse whatever fill in the blank. And if you don't, there's a whole legal doctrine that goes after you. But that legal doctrine at the end of the day sits on a foundation that is civil rights law and affirmative action. The best writer on this, the best essay I've read on this is by Hananya, Richard Hananya, who is generally a very good thinker. And somebody, I think everybody should be reading. You can find him on Twitter. You can find his own substack. I think he's the best non-objectivist intellectual I know out there and just generally one of the most original thinkers out there. I use this stuff all the time and I think it's very, very good. Not on all issues that I agree with him. But on the ones, but to some issues, he's just really brilliant and he does amazing research. So on this issue of civil rights law, once affirmative action ruling comes through, I'll do a whole show on it. But his essay on civil rights law and affirmative action and its impact on woke culture and on everything else woke that exists today is really, really, really good and worth anybody's time. And I will do a show on that at some point down the road here. All right, we're only about halfway to our goal. I guess you guys are kind of getting ready for the lull. We've got one last question. You can step in and help us get to the goal if you so choose. Upton says, is the term toxic masculinity similar to crony capitalism? The attributes being described are not part of the properly underscored masculinity. Yes, absolutely. There is no such thing as toxic masculinity any more than there is such thing as crony capitalism. Masculinity is something. And by it's something, it is not toxic. So yes, afternoon. Absolutely right. Sorry, I didn't catch onto that. Properly understood masculinity is the key. And I think very few people have a proper understanding of masculinity, sadly, in kind of the world we have today. All right, thanks, guys. Good discussion. Thanks for the questions. If anybody wants to jump in with something, now's the time. Again, July 4th will be a show on American exceptionalism. It will be done from Ocon. You can come and watch it live. There'll be a live audience. I'll probably be doing some shows before that just from my hotel room. What else do I need to tell you? That's it. So if I'll see you July 4th, if I don't see you before that and have a great weekend, 4th of July, long weekend, all of that. Yeah. Bye, everybody.