 Fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual wonders. This is the Iran Book Show. All right, everybody. Welcome to Iran Book Show on this, uh, what is it? I don't even know what it is. It's Wednesday. It's Wednesday, March 13th, almost in the middle of March. Thanks, uh, thanks, everybody, for joining me here. And, um, welcome. I'm still in London. Last day, last day, I will be in San Juan, Puerto Rico, tomorrow, flying, uh, flying in from, uh, from London. So, um, last opportunity to, uh, um, yeah, for those, uh, for those of you in the UK to be in the same time zone as me. Uh, all right, let's, uh, today, what do I do today? Oh yeah, I spoke at the Henry Jackson Society, which is a foreign policy think tank. I think it was, uh, uh, Douglas Murray was involved in it, uh, for many years. And, uh, it is a, uh, you know, very successful London-based think tanks that deals with foreign policy issues all over the world. It is dedicated to the defense of political freedom. And really nice guys, uh, you know, we had a little classroom about 25 people there. I think they, uh, they, uh, streamed it. So, uh, and you can watch it now on YouTube. So if you look it up, I put it up on Twitter. I, uh, linked to it on Twitter, but you can put it up and, uh, and watch it. It, it was good. It was a good summary of my position on Israel and the Palestinians. The audience seemed to be basically friendly. Uh, it was a, uh, very positive audience. And, uh, yeah, I think, I think I got the points across. And hopefully you guys will watch it and let me know what you think and, uh, and so on. I did have lunch at a, uh, uh, really fantastic restaurant today. Uh, my new favorite restaurant, I guess, in London is a Koko, a-k-o-k-o, uh, and it is African. My previous favorite restaurant in London was also African, uh, Ikoi. Uh, Ikoi is still around, uh, but Ikoi got a second Michelin star and, uh, it's basically become too expensive to go to on a regular basis. It's like $300 a person, 300 pounds a person, more than $300 a person. So I haven't been going recently. I don't think I've been there since they moved to their new facility and, um, don't know when I'm going to go. That's a lot of money. Anyway, a Koko, which is not that much money. It's, it's less than half of that, uh, is, uh, it's fantastic. It really is, maybe as good as Ikoi, uh, and, uh, and really, really good. Every dish was incredibly, incredibly flavorful, lots of flavor, lots of spice. I like spicy and, uh, any great restaurant. So a Koko, for those of you interested, African food, Western African food. A lot of us are used to Ethiopian kind of East African food. This is West African food, uh, super flavorful, a lot of unusual flavors. And, uh, tends to be spicy. So if you like that combination, uh, check, uh, check them out, a Koko in, uh, in London. Uh, all right, uh, what else do we have? No, no news yet on any of the pending, uh, big news items. I'll, I'll be, uh, I'll update you as soon as I, as soon as I hear anything. And, uh, yeah, let's, yeah, let's just jump into, uh, to what, what we have. On Friday last week, Donald Trump basically, uh, merged, announced that, uh, Laura Trump, uh, his daughter-in-law, I think she's the daughter of, uh, uh, Donald Trump Jr., uh, is basically going to co-chair the Republican National Committee. Uh, they also have another co-chair, another, uh, who is a Trump, um, uh, supporter has been for a very long time. And, uh, and, uh, uh, the two of them, uh, basically are now co-chairing, uh, the, the, uh, the, the woman who co-chaired it, the Republican National Committee has left, resigned, um, basically at the request of Trump. And basically now the Republican National Committee has become a, uh, a branch of Trump Enterprises, a branch of the Trump campaign, uh, they have fired a significant number of the, uh, people who worked for the Republican National Committee. And you really get a sense that Trump now views the Republican Party as his, not just that he is the nominee, but it's his, his party to decide what will happen, what, uh, you know, who will do what, who will get what positions, uh, and also as a financial resources, the part of the discussion is about using the, uh, resources, the money, the, the, the money raised for campaigns by the Republican National Committee to take care of some of, uh, Donald Trump's financial bills. We'll see if that happens. But that seems to be in the agenda. I think this is now officially unequivocally without any question. Uh, I think, uh, I don't know what is happening here. This is now Donald Trump's political party in a way that I don't think we've ever seen, uh, in, um, modern American politics. I just don't think we've seen, uh, the kind of dominance that Donald Trump is going to, I expect to exert on Republican politics. Of course, he already does that through the influence he has on House members and senators and voters and everything else. But, uh, I think his takeover of the R&C is a, uh, is a, uh, next step. Uh, and it's not, uh, you know, and there's no question in my view that, uh, this has nothing to do with draining a swamp and this has everything to do with money, money, yeah. Trump needs money. And, uh, with power, this gives Trump, uh, a major, major boost to his control over everybody else, uh, in within the Republican Party. So, uh, that's it. There is no Republican Party. This is now Trump's party. So, uh, and maybe that's an opportunity. Maybe that's a true opportunity for a, uh, for a third party to arise. It is, it is interesting that a number of conservatives in the House of Representatives is now resigned. Not only resigned, but if not, I'm not waiting until to be replaced in the next election. But resigned, quitting, giving up, walking away. Uh, the latest is Buck, uh, from Colorado, uh, who is a, uh, uh, a pretty straight down the line conservative. And, uh, he basically is resigning and saying that he can't function, that nobody can function. The Republican Party is dysfunctional and that, uh, it is, uh, incompetent that the House of Representatives is the most incompetent, uh, he is, uh, he has ever seen. Of course, get rid, uh, according to Scott, getting rid of anybody that Trump doesn't like is thumbs up when it comes to Scott. So, yeah, we've got Kevin McCarthy has gone. Kevin McCarthy was a Trump ally, was a conservative, but not quite good enough for the, for the, for the crazies, for the crazy mega people in the party. As a consequence, even today, um, even today, uh, the Republican Party has what? I think a two seat majority in the House given the vacancies because of the, um, because people are resigning. So Republicans have a mega, mega, mega, uh, you know, uh, majority that is going to make their ability to do anything that they want, almost impossible. All right, um, let's go from the political swamp that is the Republican Party, uh, under Trump to, well, not a swamp, but a disaster zone, which is Gaza. Israel still has not, uh, initiated any kind of action against, um, against, uh, Rafa, the, the one area in the Gaza Strip that, uh, that Israel has not occupied. I mean, there's still a lot of pockets, uh, within even northern Gaza and certainly in central and southern Gaza that Israel does not have control of, uh, pockets in which terrorists are still, uh, rising up from tunnels and, and, uh, creating mayhem and killing people. Uh, you, you, you know, uh, uh, you still get, uh, uh, significant areas where that happens, but there was one big area where basically Israel has done very little other than bomb from the air and that is the area of, uh, Rafa, which is in the south of Gaza. But there are about a million refugees in Rafa. So, uh, it is, uh, incredibly densely populated right now. Israel has been, I don't know what, what, what the term to use, but it's been delaying, postponing, not making a decision, um, in order to, uh, in order to, in, in, in terms of going into Rafa and in doing, in terms of doing what is necessary. Rafa is the final area that needs cleansing of Hamas. It is, uh, the final area that after Israel gains control over it, it should have basically at least above ground for control over the Gaza Strip. It is the area where the hostages are probably being held. It's also the area in which the senior leaders of Hamas are present. Israel did, in all likelihood, kill the number three person, number three, number four, depending on how you count in Hamas a few days ago, uh, in a home, uh, in, uh, in one of the refugee camps in central, central Western Gaza. Uh, and, uh, so that is the most senior Hamas leader Israel has managed to kill. And, and, uh, they, they, there's no hundred percent confirmation, but it does look like they did kill him. At least if he's not dead, he's severely injured. Uh, but again, even there, that's still, he was in an area that still is not completely controlled by the Israelis. So there's still a lot of work to do in Gaza. And, and Israel is not moving. It's acting slowly. It's, uh, hesitating, uh, to going to Rafa, Rafa in the south, uh, it is going to have to, according to, um, according to, uh, international observers, it would have to evacuate, uh, the civilian population from that area. It would have to make sure that that evacuation Hamas did not escape. So it would have to control that evacuation. It has not started that process. That process could be lengthy. I'm not sure what it's waiting for. Well, I, my suspicions, I'll tell you in a minute, but, um, it's, um, it's just dithering. It's just dithering. And it's not doing what's necessary. And of course a lot of this is focused on fear and the fear is the fear of, uh, the Biden administration, the fear of the international community, the Europeans, the fear that, uh, that if they go in strong, that, uh, the United States will start, uh, withholding aid. There has been some rumors that the Biden administration has threatened not to send Israel weapons systems. If they go into a rougher, too strong, i.e. to win, there's also a lot of pressure from the international community on Israel to, you know, moderate, modify, slow down and not kill as many people. This is all, uh, I mean, disgraceful. Israel is at war. And the war is existential. The enemy wants to destroy Israel. The enemy wants to eradicate Jews from Israel. The enemy is not an enemy to be compromised with. It's not an enemy that can be negotiated with. It's not an enemy that one can appease. Appeasement is what Israel has been doing for the last at least 20 years with Gaza and appeasement has blown up in its face. October 7th is the direct consequence of Israeli appeasement of Gaza. So Israel is finally trying to go into the Gaza Strip. It's doing it in a way that is clearly self-sacrificial and clearly in a way that is minimizing civilian casualties on the other side. Nobody cares. The world doesn't care. The left accuses Israel of committing genocide. And the right, at least some on the right, just want to get what they want. They want the US to get over their obsession with Israel and basically to abandon Israel. The Tucker Carlson of the world. The, uh, what's her name? I forget her name. The commentator on, uh, on, uh, the commentator on, um, Shapiro show, right, on Shapiro's network. Anyway, uh, Israel is doing what it needs to be due to defend itself in what is clearly existential war. And, and I brought this up in my talk today. The West is basically suicidal. The West sees the threat of Islam and shrugs. It sees how they're willing to kill and destroy and they shrug. They see in England here, they see the hundreds of thousands of Muslims demonstrating in the streets, violating the law. And they shrug. They see clearly what Hamas is all about, what the Palestinians all about in October 7th and they don't care. The West is basically being on a suicidal track for decades now. Really for, for, since World War II, but, but well before that, certainly since the Bill and wall, the, the West has been complacent and, uh, and, and, and borderline suicidal. I mean, I got a lot of questions today, some of them after the recording ended, uh, but got a lot of questions like, but what about the Geneva Convention? And what about a global standards for how to fight a war? Um, and it's very simple. Who cares? The bad guys never care about conventions, Geneva or otherwise. You can't win a war if you can't fight, if you can't, if you're not allowed ever to kill civilians. You can't win a war on the terms of the enemy. You just can't. If the West wants to win, it has to embrace tactics, strategies, the win. Israel being part of the West needs to do that. The last war the West won was World War II. And it won not based on the standards that they today live by. Indeed, they would have lost. They would have lost if they were fighting by today's standards. By the standards they forced Israel to fight by. Israel has to be ruthless. It has to be determined. It's still got a shot at winning this. It doesn't look like it's going to take it. So Israel still says their committees are going to rough up, but it's going to be delayed and delayed and delayed. We're probably looking for at least two weeks. The more they delay, just like I told you at the beginning of the war, the more difficult it becomes. The more they delay, the less likely it is that they're successful. The more they delay, the stronger Hamas becomes. If they're going to rough up, they have to kill the remaining leadership of Hamas. That is a minimum, minimum, minimum for any kind of success. Hamas leadership needs to be completely destroyed and annihilated. And Israel needs to do it and they really do. They really need to tell the Biden administration to go take a hike. They need to ignore the Biden administration. They need to stop taking them seriously. I mean, I don't know how dependent Israel is on the supply of American weapons. I hope they're not very dependent. I hope they can win this without those weapons. They just need to go in and do it and get it done with. Faster the better. All this prep time is prep for Hamas to undermine Israel's ability to win. So, oh, one other thing about Gaza, well related to the war generally. South Africa today announced that if you are a dual citizen of Israel and South Africa, and you served in the Israeli military, you will be arrested when you arrive in South Africa. Now, this is stunning, arrested, right? Because you're a South African citizen who's fought in Israel's war. This is stunning. Of course, that would mean, you know, my father, when he, if he, well, he probably will never go. But if he ever goes back to South Africa where he has two brothers and many, much family could be arrested. My father has fought in the Israeli army several wars and has dual citizenship. I guess technically I could probably get South African citizenship. Maybe it's too late now, but thankfully I don't have it. But I fought in the Israeli military. And there were a lot of Israeli South African dual citizens. There was a very large Jewish community in South Africa that moved to Israel. That emigrated to Israel and kept their South African citizenship. But now they can get arrested if they go back to South Africa. I mean, it's truly pathetic. And upsetting that the world is basically taking a stand that basically is equivalent of, what kind of support you, but we don't want you to win? What support you, but, you know, you're going to have to, you're going to have to let the Palestinians survive in a sense of a viable political entity to fight again another day. You're going to have to let something, maybe it won't be called Hamas, but you have to let the Palestinians have some political. And it's stunning because you think the West would have learned from Afghanistan or Iraq? No, nothing. You think the West would have learned from them? They're completely out of failures? Nothing. Israel's doing the job of the United States and the UK and Europe? Nothing. They don't appreciate it at all. And Israel's not even asking, I mean, if you really think about it, this is a war that is much bigger than Israel's war. And if you really think about it, the United States should be involved in this war and the United States should be active in this war and destroying Iran. Instead, the United States is busy building a floating dock off of the coast of Gaza so that ships can bring aid to the Gazans on a daily basis to feed the Gazan population. Why? What have the Gazans done to deserve all this European aid and American aid? What have the Gazans done to deserve all this food and money? I mean, all the money that they got in the past clearly went to building the tunnels, to buying the weapons that were used so horrifically on October 7th. Why is it that the world keeps arming these people? Why is it that the world keeps supporting them, supplying them, feeding them? And the answer is, the answer is obvious, I guess, the answer is altruism. It's the suffering that gives them a moral claim against the West. It's the poverty that gives them a claim against the wealth of Europe and the United States. It is the fact that they are hungry, which makes them deserving of food. It is the fact that they are under attack by the Israelis, which makes them deserving of European and American protection. Altruism, altruism, altruism, through and through, through and through. And altruism is killing the West, altruism is preventing the West from doing what is necessary to win their wars in the Middle East, to deal with the West's enemies in the Middle East. It is altruism that prevents the West from winning any wars. And it is altruism now that also, I mean, Israel itself is altruistic. It is altruism now that is costing Israel so much in blood and in youth, the blood of its youth, I guess. All right. As you probably know, RFK Jr. is running for president. He still has to register in all the states. I don't think he has yet. And as a shortcut for doing that, I've mentioned this earlier. I mentioned this a few weeks ago. He is still considering a run for the Libertarian Party's nomination. I mean, wouldn't be amazing. And I think fitting and appropriate. If RFK Jr. became the nominee of the Libertarian Party, he is after all a socialist, regulator, environmentalist, and on and on and on. I mean, this guy is really bad on economic liberty. But the Republican Party, I mean, sorry, Libertarian Party, true also of the Republican Party. Doesn't care anymore about economic liberty. They only care about social issues, primarily, you know, vaccines, COVID, immigration. And of course, one thing they care about, which is problematic for RFK Jr., is that the Libertarian Party hates Israel. And the Libertarian Party is filled with Jew haters, Israel haters, and the hate Israel may be even more than the hate America. And RFK is a support of Israel. And that might be the basis on which they don't accept him as their presidential nominee. I think it would be perfect. I am rooting for RFK to be the Libertarian Party nominee. This will be the best indication ever of the Libertarian Party's complete and out of bankruptcy, complete and out of stupidity. RFK is going to be announcing his VP candidate any day now. I guess in order to register an independent candidate, not part of the two-party system, has to also declare who his VP is. The two leading candidates, two leading candidates for RFK's VP choices. Anybody know who they are? Aaron Rodgers, the great quarterback from the Green Bay Packers. I mean, he was a great quarterback. You have to give him that, one of the greatest. Not sure about how good he would be as a VP, as a politician. He did do interviews with a copy of Al Shrug in the background. So we know he's read that book. Beyond that, I just think he's just, again, what does unite him and RFK? They both hate vaccines. So it's a vaccine hatred candidacy. The other one is Jesse Ventura. You remember Jesse Ventura, the wrestler who then became, I think, Governor of Minnesota. And was fairly successful Governor of Minnesota. So, yeah, we'll see. Aaron Rodgers or Jesse Ventura, pick your pick. That is going to be RFK. I mean, the more time goes by, and we have Trump and Biden doing their crazy nonsense. You know, the more RFK looks just as bad, not worse. We'll have a lesser of all evils, not three evils, all evils. And Jesse says, Ken says, Jesse has mental issues and he's a conspiracy guy. That's pretty funny coming from you, Ken. So is Trump. Trump has mental issues and he's a conspiracy guy. And don't tell me Trump's not a conspiracy guy. He led the whole conspiracy on Obama's Booth thing. So Trump's a conspiracy guy just like RFK. And he's a mental guy just like Jesse Ventura. Trump's exactly like Jesse Ventura. What's different? Anyway, God, this is American politics now. It's a question of which mental guy and which conspiracy theories are we going to vote for this time? Or we're just going to vote for the senile guy who doesn't even know what conspiracy theories are. That is the standard. All right, let's see. So yeah, I think Aaron Rodgers is my candidate. It'll be fun. It'll be fun to watch. Finally, some good news. All right, good news. It really looks like commercial nuclear fusion over the last year. Just year has gone from like, yeah, right, that's never going to happen to soon. Soon we're going to have the ability to produce electricity commercially using fusion. Which is stunning, stunning achievement. All right, Wes, thank you. $100, really, really appreciate that. Okay, if I'm doing thank yous, let me do this quickly. But something, something, thank you. Really appreciate the support and Jonathan Honing. Those are all stickers. Anyway, Britain's first light fusion announced last week that it had broken the world record for pressure at the Sandia National Laboratories in the United States. Pushing the boundary to 1.85 Tera Pascal. God, this is just hard to imagine. Five times the pressure at the core of earth. I guess this is essential for producing fusion energy. Days earlier, a clutch of peer reviewed papers confirmed that Commonwealth fusion systems near Boston had broken the world record for a large scale magnet with a field strength of 20 Tesla using the latest high temperature superconducting technology. This exceeds the threshold necessary for producing net energy or a Q factor above one. So it's basically, you know, taken the ability to produce, to use fusion to produce cost effective electricity from very unlikely to very likely. And this is a complete revolution. Fusion could generate electricity for the grid at a viable cost by 2035 or by 2040. Some, some companies, Fusion Industry Association says that some of its members think they can do it by 2030. That's what, six years from now. That basically makes almost every other so-called clean energy source meaningless. This is, if this is really cost effective, then this is more reliable, endless, low cost and amazing energy that basically replaces everything. This is the true revolution, if it indeed is happening. It does look like serious scientists all over the world now think it's a reality and it doesn't have the risk profile of regular nuclear. So it doesn't seem to have anything that would prevent, doesn't seem to have anything that would prevent, you know, that would cause people to rile up against it except just the general hatred of civilization that many on the left have. But it doesn't strike me at all as this is something that politicians will stop because there's no basis for it. They usually need an excuse like, oh, the whole world will blow up, there's radiation, there's no radiation here. Now the question is going to be, is it viable cost wise? I think that's the real question. Can they get the cost curve down enough? Can they create these massive magnets at a cost that makes it possible? We got one, Henry Allen, Lord Milk says, even fusion generates nuclear waste, but it is radioactive for much less duration. Yeah, I mean, the nuclear waste problem is far smaller here than it is with regular nuclear power plants and even with regular nuclear power plants, it's not that big. And in places like France, they do a very good job at basically recycling the nuclear waste. So in France they have very little nuclear waste at the end of the day. Anyway, exciting. You know, a lot has happened in a very short period of time. We went from complete skepticism about fusion to billions of dollars of venture capital money flowing into the space in the hope of creating an energy revolution. One other piece of good news, a new AI came out today, Devin AI. I think it's by a company called Cognition, which is founded by Peter Thiel. Devin AI is an AI that specializes in writing code. And they claim it is a real revolution in terms of code writing. If you are a programmer out there, beware Devin is coming for your job. Supposedly you'll be able to give Devin AI assignments in terms of the functionality and it will be able to write the code for you. It's supposed to be a massive breakthrough in advance beyond anything AI can do today in terms of assisting code or writing code. And this is going to happen. We're going to see more and more and more of this. Once certain breakthroughs happen with AI, we're just going to see more and more and more applications and more and more and more breakthroughs because more and more capital is going to chase it. And it should be super exciting. I am interested in those of you who are programmers. Let me know what you think of Devin AI. Is this just hype? Or is there something really revolutionary here that can really change the nature of the work that you do? I assume for the better, ultimately. But it will mean fewer programmers, probably, unless you're programming AI and then you've got plenty of work. All right. I think that covers the news that I had. Let's see, anything else we want to talk about? Well, let's see where these questions take us. Remind you that the show is funded from support, from listeners, viewers like you. The show is funded through the super chat. Stickers and questions and questions are great because you can ask questions and you can steer the conversation. And is also funded by support from monthly contributors that contribute on a monthly basis. And that's amazing because that's predictable. And you can become a monthly supporter of The Iran Book Show on Patreon on www.uranbrookshow.com. All right. Thank you, RDF came in with a sticker. If everybody did a sticker right now, we would be in great shape. So please consider that form of support. All right, Jody QT, Jody Quiet says, I was starstruck meeting you today. Thank you so much. My question was, how did we lose universities to the left? Why does their ideology resonate with them and the media? Yeah, thank you, Jody. You know, no reason to be starstruck, but I appreciate it. I wish I was even more of a superstar in that sense. And we packed large auditoriums with people who wanted to come and hear me talk. Not quite there yet. Maybe one of these days, but not quite there. But let's talk a little bit about this question because it's a great question. It's an important question. So let's see, you know, how did we lose universities to the left? Well, here's the question and it's really important. Who's we? How did we lose universities to the left? Who's we? We, at least objectivists, have never had the universities. So we never lost the universities to the left. And what were universities a hundred years ago? I mean, they weren't, they were particularly in the United States. They were mixture. Already a hundred years ago, the progressives, the left of the time, were already starting to dominate the universities in terms of the faculty members. You know, think about it this way. When universities like Harvard and Princeton wanted to become world-class universities, wanted to become, you know, America's universities, what did they do? Well, they needed to get the best faculty in the world. And to do that, they went to Europe and they brought European faculty to the United States. So in the late 19th century, early 20th century, the best American universities imported faculty from Germany and from France, from the UK to come and teach in the United States. What were the beliefs of these faculty? What were the beliefs of these faculty? The beliefs were not classical liberal. The beliefs were not the beliefs of the founding fathers. These intellectuals that came to America in the late 19th century, early 20th century, really started in the mid 19th century, were, you know, students of German continental philosophy, almost all of them. They were one form or another of Kantian's adherence to Kant's philosophy. A philosophy that rejects reason in favor of some kind of intuition and ultimately in favor of faith. Because reason, you know, Kant is for reason, but he divorces reason from reality, from the real reality. Therefore, we can never know the truth. These intellectuals that appealed, you know, altruism, appealed rejection, complete rejection of the pursuit of happiness. Kant rejects the pursuit of happiness and so do philosophers of the 19th century. They reject the pursuit of happiness and they reject capitalism and liberty. They are authoritarians. You know, maybe they were influenced by Plato's Republic or in one way or another they are collectivists and statists. They're coming from Europe after all, a place of collectivism and statism. They are not adherence to the founding principles of the United States. That is not the orientation, that's not what they know, that's not what they understand, that's not what they care about. And they start taking the privileged, the leading position, they have the word privileged, the leading positions in American universities. And of course they are the ones who educate future PhDs, which means they educate future intellectuals and future professors. And while they're not overwhelming at the beginning, by the 1960s all American universities are dominated by leftists. Now leftists in those days were a little better than leftists today. They were Marxists, real Marxists, scientific Marxists, Marxists of different flavors. I mean there were also Kantians of different types, Hegelians of different types. But there was almost nobody who was an advocate of the American system. There was almost nobody who was an advocate of the American ideas. Even the ones who were claimed to be were heavily influenced by Kantian philosophy, heavily influenced by Kant and undermined their own defense. In the 1960s the new left arose to object to the optimism of the Marxists. The Marxists believe in economic growth, they believe in man dominating nature, they believe in industrialization. And with the rise of environmentalism and with the rise of the new left, all that went out the window. And a lot of those activists on campuses who demonstrated against the war and demonstrated against their professors and who did the sit-ins and the radicals, the hippies, the Woodstock kids of the 1960s, what happened to many of them? Well most of them, not most of them, many of them stayed at the universities, got PhDs and became professors. And they developed the kind of ideas which I think from today, whoops computer went flying. They're the people who ultimately developed everything that you know today is woke into sectionality and it's them and their immediate descendants. The whole identitarian ideology that dominates the left today was, you know, these people brought to the forefront, the whole woke agenda. And it's just the development of postmodernism which is a philosophy developed in France. Again, Continental, it's where our intellectuals came from. The fundamental problem is not the left sweeping the universities. It's not the attractiveness of socialism and communism, although they were. I mean if you watch the movie Oppenheimer, I think the movie actually whitewashes us a little bit, but a significant number of our scientists in America in the 1930s and 40s and 50s were communists. They believe in communism, they upheld communism. That's scientists, never mind the humanities. And so what really is the problem here is that nobody defended capitalism. Basically capitalism was, oh yeah, you know, the system that doesn't need the defense, it just is. Those who believe in capitalism didn't go into academia, they went into business. But there weren't many people who intellectually, thoughtfully, philosophically defended capitalism. They ignored the need for such a defense. Those who are pro-capitalism. This is the businessman who said, yeah, who cares about ideas? Eh, who cares about the universities? Well, here you go. So there was no defense of capitalism. The Enlightenment died, it just faded away. And there were a few classical liberals left here and there, very few. The ones who were left had very little to say, very little to say that was interesting. Certainly very little to say that was inspiring. Many of them were Christians and therefore tried to defend capitalism on the basis of faith and a basis of religion, on a basis of emotion. Nobody was buying that. And there was just, there was just no, there was just no intellectuals of capitalism. I mean, there were a few, the Austrian economists, but they got shunned from the universities and there weren't many of them. Again, the classical liberals, the people who go to Montpeler and society meetings. But even they are pretty weak, pretty weak, very weak, in philosophically, intellectually, morally defending capitalism. So guess what? They lost. They lost. They lost. The left, which is much more idealistic, which is much more passionate, which is much more consistent, which is much more interested in intellectual pursuits, dominates. And has dominated for a hundred years. People are only noticing it now because it's affecting them. But the left has dominated for a hundred years. And they're noticing now because the left is more wacky, more crazy, more insane than it was in the past. But part of, a big part of this is the fact that the better people, the people who uphold claim, at least, uphold capitalism, defaulted on their responsibility, didn't provide a proper defense of capitalism. Alright, Jeremy, another $50. Thank you, Jeremy. So far, AI helped code. Helping code is very much helping give input for consideration, extremely helpful for my job, and doesn't replace me. I like the formulation I saw on Acts that LLM type AI is like a subconscious that brings things up as inputs to be considered. Interesting. That's a formulation I would expect from an objectivist. So interesting that you found it on Acts. That does sound like a good thing. I am curious, Jeremy, after you look at this new Devin, I guess, Devin AI, let me know what you think of it. Supposedly when I'm reading it's a game changer, it's very different than the LLM AIs that we've seen so far. But of course that could be complete hype. So I'm curious if you and the other programs on here, I know a number of your program is. It would be great if you guys actually went out there and tested it and came back with an evaluation. I'm really curious what you guys think. Thank you, Jeremy, really value your input. Alright, Clark has a $200 question, but it looks like it's a part one. So I'm going to wait with it until he posts the part two because otherwise I have a feeling you're going to be stuck in the middle. Okay, so we've got other questions to do in the meantime. Is it likely that Netanyahu is deliberately slowing the war in order to keep himself in power and beyond the reach of prosecution and existing criminal indictments? No, I don't think it is. I mean, I think he's slowing the war because he's a coward. I think he's slowing the war because he doesn't know what to do. He's slowing the war because he's intimidated by Biden and by the Europeans. But I don't think it's politics. The reality is that Israeli public doesn't want the war to be slowed down and is upset with him right now for slowing the war down. So I don't think he's gaining the political credentials or the goodwill that you would assume he would because the Israeli public wants this over with. They want Hamas defeated. They want their kids home. They want it over with. And I think it's world pressure. I think it's his, you know, Netanyahu has been a weak prime minister for 20 years. There's no reason he would change today. He's already done more than I expected he would do. But he hasn't done it with the kind of forcefulness that he should have done. Okay, monotropic, monotropic. In his Davos speech, Millay said that worldwide average annual GDP per capita growth has increased from under 1% during the 19th century to 3% in the 21st century. Is this correct? I don't know, but that sounds right. Primarily because the 19th century economic growth was limited to a very small part of the planet. It was limited to the United States and Europe. And there was very little economic growth anywhere else. So if everywhere else in the world is growing at zero and that's where most of the population of the earth lives, then even if the West and the United States are growing at 4%, 5%, 6%, the average is only going to be 1% and that makes sense to me. Today, you've got, you know, if you believe the numbers out of China, they're growing at 5%, India's growing at 7%, 8%, and that's like, what's that? Just those two countries are a significant portion of the world population. Even in Africa, there are countries that are growing at a significant percentage. So, yes, I think it's reasonable. So even though the West is only growing at 1%, 2%, 3% on average seems reasonable. Yeah, I haven't looked at it. I haven't looked at the global worldwide GDP per capita growth, but it doesn't seem far-fetched that he's saying that. And that doesn't mean that freedom in the 19th century and the places where it was applied did not work. Argentina was going really, really fast at the end of the 19th century because of the pro-freedom constitution that they put in place. Thomas, the Palestinians are clearly anti-Semitic. Would you call the hatred of Israel among Westerners, both on the left and on the right, more anti-Semitic or anti-Western? I think it's a combination of both and I'm not sure you can separate it out as I think Marx understood Jews are very much leaders within Western civilization. They were very involved in the establishment of capitalism. They are very involved in the intellectual ideas of the West. They're very involved in business. They're very involved in science, very, very involved in science. So, you know, I think hatred of the West is almost always going to include hatred of Jews. Now, what is the driver? I think the driver is probably hatred of the West and then it's combined with hatred of Jews. But I think most Westerners are anti-Semitic, but they're also anti-Western. I can't think of anti-Semitic people who are non-anti-Western. It's not like right or left. They're all anti-Western if you understand what the West is. You cannot be anti-Semitic and not be anti-Western, but I do think there's a real hatred of Jews. And there always is, it seems, in times of intellectual upheaval. Sadly. That dudo bunny, where did the spineless weirdos come from and how did they get power? Which spineless weirdos? I mean, which ones? All of them, I mean, they came from us. We are spineless culture. We're a culture of spineless people. We're a culture dominated by a philosophy of altruism. We're a culture dominated by an ethic of altruism. We're a culture dominated by Christianity, by the morality of Christianity. And as long as we're dominated by the morality of Christianity, we will be spineless. And who says, technology is advancing exponentially and politics is worsening rapidly. What will emerge from tech advancement and increased political controls? Can we continue to progress materially and regress politically? We can't, to some extent, look at China. So we can't, to some extent, less than what we have the potential for. And ultimately, if it gets bad enough politically and culturally, then no, we will stop progressing materially. We will decline materially. And indeed, I think that some of the precursors of material decline are there, depending on the kind of policies that, depending on the kind of policies that whoever wins the White House imposes, the potential for material declines sooner rather than later is absolutely out there and available. All right. Here's Clark's multipart question. I guess the long questions, it has to be in a number of questions. $100. Thank you, Clark. Really, really appreciated. We're only $71 away from the goal, $79 away from the goal. So please consider supporting the show. Getting us to our goal really, really helps. We need to do a little bit of catch up as well for March. All right. Part one. Never believe that the irrational are completely unaware of the absurdities of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves for it is their adversaries who is obliged to use words responsibly since he believes in words. The irrational have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons. They discredit the seriousness of their inter-cultures. They delight in acting in bad faith since they seek not to persuade by sound argument, but to intimidate and, to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent. I think that's mostly right. I mean irrational, but you make them sound too sophisticated and too whimsical and too almost fun loving. I mean, no, this is the ugly, the angry, because their irrationality leads to anger, leads to frustration, and it leads to fear because they don't know how the world works, because they can't really engage with the world because of the irrationality. So they feel a lot of fear, but I think that's right. They don't care about words. People say, how can they say that? How can they believe that? How can they hold that? Because they're irrational. That's the essence of irrationality. It's to reject reality, reject truth, reject the obvious. And they don't care what words mean. You know, your argument, they're post-modern. Everything is fluid. Everything is up to interpretation. Everything at the end of the day is determined by emotions, not by reason, not by thought. And they really do hold that. That is really their agenda. Thank you, Clark. Really, really appreciate the support and I agree basically with your comment. All right, Liam, my government takes $100 then spends $120 on $70 worth of stuff that I didn't ask for. Yep, that's pretty typical of governments. I don't know which government you're talking about, but that's pretty typical of status governments in the world today. Liam also says, why do the English law bloody marries? Why would anyone drink this alcoholic ketchup? It's not just the English. Americans love bloody marries. A lot of people love bloody marries. I don't know. I guess it's like that tomato sauce that can be a little spicy. It can be pretty good. But ketchup can be pretty good. I'm not rejecting ketchup, although I don't eat ketchup anymore because it's full of sugar. Michael said, is having a wedding at City Hall in Maui, shouldn't that special day be a huge event? No, no. Why should it be a huge event? I mean, the special day is a special day of you and whoever you're marrying, how you want to celebrate it, how you want to do the contract, what you want to do, how many people you want to invite, what the ceremony looks like. It's completely up to you and your values. Maybe you don't want a big wedding with lots of people that you don't care about. I find most big weddings boring. Nobody seems to really have fun. No, I think small weddings where everybody knows each other, where people can really have fun, where you can be really intimate, where you're celebrating with people you really care about, not a long list of people you felt obliged to invite. Without all the, I don't know, the band and the crazy dress code and the stupid music and the just routine ceremony that every married couple goes through and it's the same thing. You know, I like small, quirky, different weddings where, you know, going to city hall and getting the documents done and then having a party with some friends sounds great to me. I don't want to, I don't want to, I'm not interested in celebrating with huge numbers of people. And again, going through certain motions that I didn't choose that kind of, this is the ceremony, this is how it's always done. This is what everybody else does when they get married. Who cares? So it really depends on you. It really depends on you. I mean, some people love big events, some people don't. Some people love to do the ceremony things. I don't. Don't do it because of me. Do it based on what your true values are. All right, Dean says, was super cool meeting you at the convention in Amsterdam. Thanks again for spreading your knowledge. Yeah, it was super cool to meet you, Dean. Thank you again for all the support. And it was great to see many of you at the, many of the Europeans and the Israelis at the Amsterdam conference. It was a terrific, terrific conference. Really, really good. Those of you who still have an opportunity to go to Austin for that conference, I encourage you to do so. But I have to say that the format and the way it was structured, much about the Amsterdam conference, which was new. I thought was excellent and worked perfectly. And I think the students and the adults had a great time there. All right, let's see, Applejack, thank you for the support. These are the stickers. I saw a couple of others. Maybe not Gail, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, then we're back to Wes. Thanks, Wes again. All right, Michael. A man is never supposed to seek. He's supposed to attract. I forgot which philosopher said this, but is there something to it? A man of good character and sense of life will attract good people to him. Yeah, but why shouldn't he seek good people? Why shouldn't he seek? Other men of good character and sense of life. I don't understand that. Why would he be passive? Why would he wait for them to find him rather than him going out to seek them? Do you remember how it worked in the Fountain Inn? Go seeking Mallory, Mallory, the sculptor, and helps him and gets him back on his feet and supports him. So he seeks him. You know, time and time again, the heroes of Atlas Shrug seek out the great man. So it's way too passive to say, oh yeah, just stand around, people will find you. So absolutely, you know, a man should seek. Should seek other people of good character and sense of life should seek friendship, should seek love, should seek good people. Should seek employees who are good, should seek people, good people. So no, I mean, whoever said this is, I mean, does, how do I, does work not seek Dominique? Does Gold not seek Dagny? Does he just attract? Is he just passive, waiting there for him? Well, I mean, the context of Atlas Shrug maybe. Is it written? I mean, no, no, no. I mean, this is superficial and dumb, right? People go out there and people go out, good people go out there and seek relationships. Good relationships with good people for good purposes. This idea that friends will just come to you, good employees will just come to you. That's completely wrong. This Andrew says, Rand said her fight for rational culture was selfishly motivated. Out of psychological curiosity, do you relate to that? And are you able to consistently keep that selfish perspective of fighting freedom? I think so. I mean, I hope so. And I do, I mean, yeah, I mean, I don't know what it would look otherwise. I don't know how to do it otherwise. You know, this is, this is what I do for me, for the things and the people that I love. So, yeah, I mean, the older I become, the more selfish it is. Jennifer, I recently read from Mark Twain, quote, the Jew has made a marvelous fight in this world and has done it with his hands tied behind his back. I like how he refers to the Jew as an individual person. Yeah, Mark Twain was amazing. I mean, you read quotes of his on all kinds of subjects and he was just, he was just an amazing person. He, he traveled a lot. He was actually in Ottoman Palestine and wrote on how it was a desolate place, empty of people. There was nothing there. And but he just, he just had an amazing sense of life and he had a way of using words and he has this commentary that is, you know, almost always incredibly insightful. He's not a philosopher. He's not a philosopher, but he's a good cultural commentator. All right, we reached our target. Thank you guys. I really appreciate it. And we've got like four questions and I'm fading. I am so tired today. Let's see, why do prohibitionists think that the problem caused by prohibition can be solved by more prohibition? Because that's all they understand. All they understand is force. All they understand is authority and force and all they know is kind of a command economy, a command government, command politics. And they can't imagine that freedom leads to anything good. It's not that they believe that prohibitions, help or prohibitions, new prohibitions will help deal with the old ones, with the problems of the old ones. It's that they can't imagine any alternative. They can't imagine freedom. They can't imagine that freedom can be good. Their whole philosophical context is anti-freedom. James Taylor, do young objectors come across as kind of descending and preachy? I mean, I think less so today than in the past, my experience. Now, maybe I'm not meeting the right kind of them, of young objectors, but I think a lot less so than in the past. I think I probably came across as kind of descending and preachy when I was young. I think a lot of objectors I met 30 years ago who were young came across as that. I don't see it as much today. I think it's a good influence of some of us. Michael, Trump and Orban over at Mar-a-Lago, despicable. I foresee Trump 2.0 being emboldened to making more fascist moves and Antifa would be burning down cities in response. Quite possible. I agree with you completely on how despicable it is. I mean, Orban is not a good guy, but Orban is the type that Trump wants to associate with. Orban is what Trump strives to be, corrupt and in command, and authoritarian. Orban has no media opposition because he's basically taken out all the media that opposed him. He's arranged for them to go either out of business or to be bought by people, by his friends. Orban Page has a question in the chat I'm going to answer quickly because he didn't pay. I think altruism can be entirely rational, agree or disagree. Disagree thoroughly, not even a tiny bit of agreement. I think altruism through and through is irrational because it is detached from reality, the reality of morality, the reality of the requirements of man's life, the reality of the requirements of man's flourishing and happiness. So altruism is a sick, evil ideology which is inherently irrational and immoral. James says, a psychiatrist who has worked with elderly dementia patients said, Biden exhibited signs of stimulants used to mass cognitive decline in his amped-up, aggressive state-of-the-union speech thoughts. I don't know, I wouldn't be surprised. Stimulants are in use and it's quite possible. But I've also seen people with early dementia as Biden has. He doesn't have well-developed advanced dementia. He has early stages. I've seen them, they can amp themselves up and be high for a particular period even without drugs. But would I be surprised if he was using drugs? No, not at all. Not at all. And would I surprise any of our politicians using drugs? I think they all do, on one extent or another. So, no, not surprised. But I don't know, I'm not an expert. Alright guys, thank you. I will see you all on Friday, probably a morning show with news and then an evening show with some topic more in depth. Thank you for all the superchatters, you were great. Thank you for the support and I'm flying all day tomorrow. Wish me luck on the flight and see you Friday. Bye everybody.