 Alright, hello. Welcome to the E2 Review Podcast. I'm Max Klinger, the host of the show. Alright, so down to business. Today's episode, I'll be having a chat with Yaron Brooke. Yaron is the chairman of the Iron Round Institute and a well-known public speaker. He travels all around the world giving talks and lectures. He's had articles and columns published in Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, and a bunch of other places. And he's also the co-author and author of a number of books, including Winning the Unwinnable War, America's Self-Crippled Response to Islamic Totalitarianism, and Equal is Unfair, America's Misguided Fight Against Income and Inequality. Among other things, he's also the host of the Yaron Brooke show, which airs regularly on YouTube and is available on every podcast app. So yeah, it's great to have you on the show, Yaron. Thanks for joining me. Absolutely. It's good to be here. Right, so that was a pretty lengthy introduction. So, you know, to begin with, could you give a kind of potted summary of what your position is generally, and then we'll dig down into specifics on kind of current affairs and stuff like that. Sure. So I'm an objectivist. I'm, you know, a supporter of and adherent to the philosophy of Iron Man, the author of Atlas Shrugged and the Fountainhead. So I very much believe in, in reason, in the, you know, the objectivity of reality in, and from a moral point of view, I believe in a rational long-term self-interest, as is the way in which one should live. And I, you know, I reject the idea of sacrificed other people, you know, and living for other people. And I also reject the idea of sacrificing other people to me that is exploiting other people. So very much kind of a rational long-term self-interest. And the only kind of social system, I think that if you're self-interested, you want to live in, and it's valuable to live in, is a system of freedom, a system in which there's no compulsion, a system in which, you know, coercion and force and authority are kind of outlawed. And that system is capitalism. So I'm very much a pro-capitalism, pro-individual rights and an advocate of freedom. So I know you give a lot of talks to, well, all different groups, but on one podcast, I heard you talking about giving speeches and discussions and hosting discussions and talks with kids at schools. Yeah. And so what is it you generally, I mean, I know you talk about a lot of different topics, but if you were kind of summarizing your position to those kids, what is it you generally try to get across in the talks? So for example, I gave a talk yesterday at an all-girls school here in London. And the talk was basically about the fact that capitalism is this amazing economic, political, social system, that it is the only system that has brought humanity out of poverty, that it is a massive beneficiaries of the freedom that we enjoy under capitalism. And that it's kind of tragic and sad that it is such a malign system that capitalism is hated and despised by almost everybody. And that, you know, only capitalism has brought people out of poverty. And so I go through all the facts and evidence and examples of the huge benefits of capitalism. In other schools, I've done talks on things like inequality. So the whole campaign that exists today about the evils of inequalities, I reject that. I view inequality as a metaphysical fact about human nature. We're all unequal. We're all different. We're all going to have produced different results if we go out there and apply ourselves to anything. We all get different grades. We all have different ability when it comes to art. Surprise, surprise, we all make different amounts of money given our different professions. There's nothing surprising about that. There's nothing unusual about that. And indeed, the attempts to reduce inequality, the attempts to artificially create equality between people always involve taking from someone, giving to others, which I consider incredibly unjust. They involve coercion and force and basically theft and redistribution. So I give a lot of talks about the benefits of inequality, the fact that inequality is a feature of freedom. It's not a bug. It's not a problem with freedom. It's actually when you, when people are free, they are unequal. It's only, they're only going to be equal when they're not free. So I'll take freedom over inequality and over equality and either. So you mentioned you talked about some of the benefits of capitalism. What would, what would they be like? Can you give an overview? Well, sure. I mean, primarily, or most obviously I'd say the great benefit of capitalism is wealth creation. I mean, the fact is that in a pre-precapitalist world, no wealth was created for thousands and thousands and thousands of years. Human beings were basically born with the same amount of wealth as they died with. There was no change. There was no progress. There was no advancement. You know, maybe a little bit with Greece and Rome, but then it all declined afterwards. Basically humanity has been poor, extremely poor, not a little poor forever. And then in the late 18th century, early 19th century, many countries in the West, primarily the United States and the United Kingdom, embraced capitalism, embraced freedom, embraced what some people call a permissionless society, a society in which you didn't have to ask permission to do what you wanted to do. Consequently, massive amounts of wealth were created. People, entrepreneurs built businesses, created new products, created employment opportunities, and built new technologies. And what we got is the modern world. The modern world would have been unimaginable 200 years ago in terms of the amount of wealth we have. We take a lot of it for granted, but it's capitalism that is responsible for the fact that most kids today are at school because their parents make enough money so that the kids don't have to work. The parents can work and fund the kids' education. The wealth created is responsible for the fact that we have running water, we have sewage systems, we have electricity, we have computers, we have iPhones, we have the internet, we have all of that. All of that a product of the entrepreneurs that were set free to innovate and produce and create and build and reinvent the world. Under capitalism, socialism doesn't produce these results. You didn't get this in the Soviet Union. Pre-capitalist societies, feudal societies don't produce this result. The only economic system that produces actual wealth is capitalism. And look, and it's not just material wealth. The fact is that capitalism allows people to have more leisure time, which allows them to then become consumers of entertainment, of art. So capitalism makes it profitable to engage in spiritual activities like writing music, performing music, to a much larger extent than it was possible beforehand. There's no accident that the 19th century is this unbelievable rich century with regard to aesthetics, with regard to art, because, again, the human spirit is liberated by capitalism. Capitalism basically is the system of freedom. It's a system in which you don't have to ask for permission, you don't have to get approval where the government is there to protect your rights and otherwise leave you alone. So there are massive benefits to being free. So one of the things that really stands out to me is that even if they're basically the standard intellectual point of view, what you'll talk to think of as like the only intelligent way to think about society is just to start from the assumption that, oh, everything's basically pretty terrible. Capitalism is really evil and awful. Our society is horrendous. And then you have to point out all the problems with it. I mean, I disagree with that, but also even if I didn't disagree with that, I still think you have to be making that argument from a rational informed starting point, which is at least appreciating basic facts about history and the progress we've made relative to virtually the entirety of human existence at this point. And that is like the fact that people are so oblivious to that is something which really like it shocks me, but it's also just so predictable. It's shocking and the fact that they're so depressed about the world today. I mean, it's shocking. We live in the best times ever in all of human history where richer than anybody has ever been on planet Earth. A poor person in Britain today is richer than the king was 200 years ago because a poor person today has running water and sewage and electricity and computers and things that were unimaginable to a king, the richest man in the world. 200 years ago, even 100 years ago. And we have no appreciation for that we continuously people continuously are depressed and miserable and think that life is so hard and difficult today. So go and try living like a peasant did, and most people were peasants 200 years ago they should try living in a world in which 50% of all children died before the age of 10, living in a world where life expectancy is 35. You know so your lifespan is very short and most of it is dedicated to just surviving somehow gaining the food to survive. People unbelievably spoiled by how good the world is today, and they have no appreciation of it and our philosophy is such that we relish our suffering we embrace, we embrace the darkness we're constantly. We're constantly looking for the next millennium cult to tell us that we're destroying the world and everything's in and it's, it's, it's a bizarre situation in which you live with the kind of prosperity you do now. There are a lot of problems in the world, but almost all the problems in the world that we have today are caused by the lack of capitalism that caused by the lack of freedom. And if we want to solve them we need more freedom and more capitalism. So, we've got inflation right now economically, the solution to that is, you know, get the central bank off our back, get get central planning and get government off our back. You know, you've got other economic problems, they're all caused by government regulations, government controls government taxation, government intervention. So, the solution to whatever problems we have in the world today is less courage and less force more freedom which means more capital. So, without wanting to kind of vaguely repeat the point I just made I wouldn't say that I'm like strongly ideologically committed in any direction when it comes to the perfect economic system necessarily like I wouldn't say I'm absolutely committed to free market capitalism which is where we might slightly do one another I don't think I have a very strong opinion either way but what I do really strongly feel is that there's just an idea. So there's an amazing and almost ideologically deliberate lack of appreciation of basic foundational facts about the progress was made, and the nature of society now relative to almost all societies throughout human history. Before people can overcome that I think it's almost impossible to have a rational like discussion with them about what they think needs to be done because so much of what's part of modern discourse is basically based on falsehoods about how good things were in the past or how bad things are now, and an obscuring of the amazing progress of made. So I had an interview with someone called Johan Norberg you probably know him. I know Noble Court well yeah. So he just discusses basic kind of he sets out basic facts about across loads of different metrics how much progress have made so when it comes to things like child mortality rates, they've dropped at historically unprecedented rates, health care has increased amazingly technological advancement, life expectancy, almost every measure has increased and it's increased almost exponentially since capitalism started and even over the last 50 years or so has seen a huge huge jump, but that's more or less corresponded with an increase or at least a consistent level of criticism of the system and saying the system is coming to an end miss failing and can't function properly. So is that something you encounter when you speak to these kids at school, because I think schools are kind of key at spreading that type of propagandistic understanding so what's your experience with that. Well absolutely I mean nobody appreciates what capitalism is done and and the kind of how rich we really are. They constantly complain they constantly look for holes in in in my argument they constantly look for reasons to be depressed about the state of the world. It's as if the starting off point is things can't be good, because we meet old and our good I don't know the penguins are dying or polar bears are dying or something so the world must be coming to an end. And, and that's the, that's the whole approach and it's, it's amazing how many kids are really depressed about the state of the world they haven't even started their lives, really as adults and they're already depressed about it. Look what people hate. At the end of the day is kind of the the fundamental idea of liberty and freedom and capitalism which is the idea that that individuals should live for themselves. Because it is the self interest that is embedded and implicit in capitalism that the people reject and therefore they're willing to find any imaginable flaw in the system and reject it and it starts at a very young age, sadly. What do you make of the state of kind of education in general, and what kids are being taught politically. So a lot of people, myself included think that in schools there is a really serious problem and it goes beyond schools but especially in schools is like a key place where this sort of kids basically being taught ideological dogma constantly and it's not it's not taking place all day every day in every lesson and it's not even necessarily conscious on behalf of teachers but almost every measure they ever do political leanings of teachers for example finds that they can't possibly lean disproportionately to the left and to kind of mainstream left dish ideological positions on almost everything and that's definitely reflected in what the kids are being taught and where you are and aren't allowed to learn about and think about and the ways you have to think about that that's kind of my take on it but is that something you think is really an issue or is that over. Oh yeah no I think that's absolutely right I think it's worse in the United States. It's better in the UK but it's still bad. I'll give the UK schools credit. I speak regularly at high schools in the UK. Even though the teachers clearly disagree with what I have to say, they keep inviting me back. Clearly I create real dissonance cognitive dissonance among the students, and I'm sure the teachers get a lot of tough questions afterwards. They keep inviting me back so and this is true of independent schools this is true of grammar schools. This is true of variety of different schools it's not just one sector. I have spoken at high schools all over. I'd say the London and Oxford kind of area, even even for the north at Oxford, and it's the same pattern, you know the teachers a little shocked the students are surprised, but they keep having me back so I'm not sure that would happen in the US I think the US schools are much more ideological. I think the teachers unions in the United States are much more powerful in terms of dictating both curriculum and in terms of being out there on the left, and much more protective of the students and much less likely to expose them to alternative points of view. So I give, in spite of the ideological bias that exists among teachers I give them credit for for willing to bring in alternative voices in the UK. And it's it look teachers are just a reflection in the end of the universities where we really have lost the game if you will, is that the universities universities are dominantly left. It's not even close at the university level, particularly in the US it's something like 80 to 90% of all professors are left and many of them radically left way out there in the left. Consequences are the ones that train the teachers. They're the ones to train other intellectuals they're the ones who are invited by the media to come and comment on events of the day and when you lose the universities you lose the culture. So it's very difficult to debate. The universities are where they tell kids stories about how capitalism is horrific and capitalism has done all this harm and capitalism is destroying the world and has destroyed the world. It's at the universities where you really get the a historical complete lack of appreciation for what's happened over the last 200 years. And then the universities are then teaching the teachers to do that so if you wanted to change things that you've got to start by changing the teachers teachers and those are the university professors. Unfortunately, that would require replacing them because you're not going to change their minds they've got too much, too much, you know, committed to these kind of anti capitalist ideas. I'll go beyond that and say it's not even just anti capitalist necessarily it's not just an economic issue it's more like the cultural left so a lot of these people. It's philosophical they you know that they question objective reality, you know they're very postmodern they're complete subjectivists. They, they definitely culturally of a subjectivist and anything goes. Today they are also, you know, identity politics and intersectionality and all the nonsense that the left has come up with. So it may be more traditionally they've been Marxists and and and economically and culturally, and that is impact the way in which they look at the world and it certainly impacts the way they view capitalism. Yeah, I looked at once there was one study which is done as a couple actually and I think it was done about 10 years ago and things are way less extreme than the hell now which found that something like 50 to 50% of sociology professors or maybe it was 30 to 40% of sociology professors identifies either radical left activist left or Marxists which is like almost half of all sociology professors and the rest are kind of independent or Democrat type or liberal labor type in the UK and in America I think they found in one study that 1% or less of Republicans were openly Republican, and that's just Republican is not even like Trump is all very right it's just like anything which isn't Democrat or independent in the US. Absolutely. Yeah, I mean they may be other studies but that's like really like it's really, it does seem like a very profound issue in our society today. Yes, and if the universities if the universities are dominated by them and the coaches dominated by them and they, they have disproportionate power over what happens in the world and one of the most shocking things that's happened in the last 10 years or so is how these radical leftists or these wacky leftists have turned against free speech and have become, you know, dramatically anti free speech and of course, once you start silencing your opposition then there is no opposition then then you're the only voice that's heard so it's it truly is scary when 80 90% of professors, I think that's exaggerated but you know certainly a significant number of professors won't tolerate alternative views and and and a willing and support the silencing of alternative views. And also just the amazing thing about that is how almost has become something which you don't even really notice anymore because it's so commonplace so just to give one example last night I went to see you give a speech and I'll sort into the guy is a London University, and I went to the University Society of students and put the event on and that wasn't a huge event it was just a small issue then with you give me a speech of maybe like 40 50 people, and the guy just casually mentioned to me afterwards when I go into the pub. Oh yeah but by the way we have to have this event outside of the campus because it's almost impossible to get an event like this at campus because there's just too much, like, there are too many barriers to it basically, and it is because of the ideological position of the society and the type of events they want to put on So that's just one example and just like you taking you as an example, you faced at least one attempt to cancel your speech just this year just in the UK right. I mean I faced two attempts to cancel my speeches in the UK one at Exeter University one at Bristol University. You know, again the event last night was supposed to be King's College and King's College won't have me back because years ago and Tifa attacked me at King's College and and so somehow they blame me, rather than blaming Tifa. You know, and in the past, again, there were attempts to cancel me a few years ago at Exeter and other places in the US as well. So yes, I mean, and the fact that University administrations tolerate this nonsense sanction it and then you know blame me again like at King's College is ridiculous and pathetic and universities which are supposed to be the bastions up free exchange of ideas and free speech and openness to radical and new ideas. It really is tragic to see them succumbing to kind of this this kind of attitude. So, relatedly something which I find really really terrifying and have been trying to point out for a while now is the spread of this ideological world beyond just universities but into more or less the mainstream across the board and a lot of media organizations huge media organizations for example and huge corporate enterprises push a lot of this ideological narrative on people. They wouldn't consider themselves to be far left or anything it's just kind of entered mainstream liberal acceptable discourse as a set of kind of assumptions you're not allowed to question they just have to be accepted as facts. That's now reached the point where on social media platforms for example, even expressing a lot of views which have run counter to that is quite likely to get you either kicked off, potentially shadow band and that's like a hazy era but essentially means pushing down the visibility of what you write because it's considered unacceptable, or you're going to face calls really aggressive calls that you get fired that you get silence that your show gets taken down as happened to for example Joe Rogan but their account as examples. So what's your take on the state of free speech on, for example, social media platforms at present. Well, I mean first I think it's important to differentiate between what social media platforms do they are at the end of the day private organizations they can do whatever the hell they want. And, and between government censorship so you know what we really want to avoid is government censorship and unfortunately in the UK. You have all kinds of government censorship you have hate speech laws you literally will put people in jail for things that they say. They can't do that they can withdraw their service, but then you know that service was never yours to begin with. You know if they have contracts that ambiguous enough that give them the right to do whatever whatever they want, basically. So, so it's not quite the same but it is still sad to see that many of the social media platforms are restricting what they were allowing to be said and they're not allowing kind of a free exchange of ideas on their platforms. I think the world would be healthier and I think social media platforms would be healthier. If they allowed more speech rather than less. I don't know how they make the decisions I don't know what what goes behind it but it is sad that they that they won't allow for a broader discussion and more voices to be heard on their platforms. But again, it's their platforms they can decide whatever they want. Yeah, yeah, so I've heard you say that for I thought you might say something on those lines but I that's that narrow out slightly disagreeing you just in the sense that I think it I think it more or less does amount to the public square now so if you look at Twitter for example but I don't believe in public squares I mean everything should be private capitalism I'd really like to see everything private. The fact is it's not a public square Twitter was built by private individuals. It's maintained by private by private company with private capital on a daily basis, it is, you know, private company that is maintaining and sustaining the existence of Twitter and Facebook and all these things so I think it's a massive violation and a violation of property rights to then say you built it now it's now it's ours now we take it away from you know it's a public square. There is no such thing in that sense yes it what is it Regents Park or Hyde Park, you can stand at the corner and say whatever you want. But, you know that truly is in a sense of public where plus it's a place that specifically being assigned to be a place where you can say whatever the hell you want. You can do that I'm sure you can do that in the middle of Piccadilly if you just took out a little stand and stood up and started spouting all kinds of stuff. At some point they would take you down. So, there is such a thing as private property and a private property people have a right to use that to define the terms of use of their own property. Yeah, so yeah I understand that but I would just tend to think that realistically, almost everything, any major story or any attempt to get anything spread out to beyond just your own small circle of people listening to you. Now more or less relies on social media. It's where the vast majority of people's visibility comes from apart from specific media platforms themselves which are also very ideologically biased the most instances. So, like the classic example would be that it's true that Twitter is privately owned but there are always massive pushes to get people silenced on those platforms and that in itself, in my view, suggests that people trying to silence them realize the influence that the ability to say things that has on public discourse. Absolutely, it has massive influence doesn't change the fact that's private right, you can have a massive private, you can have a private company that has massive influence a CNN is a private company. I think it would be wrong and it has massive influence on people, it would be wrong to then come into CNN and say no no no you have to have three conservatives for every three liberals that you have or you have to give a voice to your on you have to come and interview you. Well there's no difference between CNN and Twitter in that sense. Again, it's it's a massive influence, but it's a private company they get to choose what they do and you don't like it. This is the beauty of capitalism right, you don't like it compete with it, or as the case may be if you don't like it by it. Yeah, and that's the beauty of what's happening right. And the thing that's exciting about Elon Musk is not that I think necessarily a lot musk is going to solve all the problems of the world by buying Twitter, but it's the fact that I've been proven right. Right. That is the capitalism solves these things without government intervention without defining it as a public square without trying to force them to do it. They don't like what Twitter has been doing. So they buy it. You know so here comes a lot musk he's going to buy he's going to try to change the terms. You'll see that nobody will be there still be people who unhappy there's still be people who claim that they're being silenced because you cannot create a neutral algorithm and alone must will not be able to create such an algorithm. There's still be some people preference over other people. It'll just be a little tilted more in the direction of greater exposure to marginal ideas and less exposure to what I consider marginal ideas. But yeah, what a beautiful solution. He didn't like how Twitter was run so he went and bought it that can only happen under a kind of a semi free and a free market or semi free marketers we have today. Yes, I really want to talk about the Elon Musk situation because that is really incredible development my opinion but first of all, do you not think that the two in the US for example in tandem with Elon Musk buying Twitter essentially saying that his reasoning is largely or partly that he wants to make it more open to free speech and lessons or which I think is whatever you think of Elon Musk is an amazing development if it works out well. But in tandem with that the US government has announced this kind of disinformation board, which is essentially, I mean, there is a lot of disinformation out there, no doubt, but the idea that a these guys are going to be able to unbiasedly police it and be the idea that that's even something which the government should be doing the first place terrifies me, but there are literally clips of the new disinformation leader woman, saying things like Republicans are disinformers, saying the discussion of critical race theory in the classroom, like any criticism of the spread of critical race theory is disinformation. Basically, questioning the Republicans entire platform or less than saying it is disinformation so that is something which is an example of the government actively trying to police something happening on this private platform so they're not a contradiction there. I think this is what you guys have been. This is what all my opponents have been wanting all along right you've wanted government government intervention to make Twitter, you know more open to more ideas you've wanted the government to step in about what you wanted to the government is not being so I was included with the government step in by the way, but yeah, go ahead, go ahead. This is the most ominous development in American politics, maybe ever disinformation board is the most horrific idea imaginable. Look, it's not like when Republicans get into power they're going to do away with this board. I can guarantee you all put money on this right now that when whoever the Republican nominee is when they get into power they're going to keep the disinformation and they're going to declare critical race theory and everything the left stands for is disinformation that do exactly what the Democrats want to do to Republicans Republicans will do to Democrats. This is why I want government out of the realm of ideas I don't want them defining any of it I don't want them intervening in Twitter and Facebook. I don't want them anywhere near social media anywhere near the internet anywhere I don't want them to have any ideas. None of it. In terms of Elon Musk. Yeah, I mean this is the most. This is fun. It's exciting. Again, it proves my point that capitalism sorts this out if there's people unhappy with the fact that there's not enough speech, not enough variety of speech on a platform somebody can step in take it over and change the walls change the way it's played. That's what Elon Musk does with it. I generally like hostile takeovers I think the idea of, of somebody saying I don't like the way this company is run, I could do it better, and putting their money where their mouth is and taking over a company I think that's one of the great advantages of capitalism. That's one of the real beautiful things about capitalism. They might succeed they might fail, but they're putting their money where their mouth is. They have to make it profitable, because he's got a lot of it's not all his money. He's borrowing a lot of money is going to have to pay back that debt. So he is going to have to find a way to make Twitter profitable it's not profitable today or very difficult it has a hard time being profitable profitability is going to depend on advertising, advertising might depend on advertisers saying there's certain types of speech we don't want to advertise on. So it's going to be interesting to watch how he tries to solve the problems. I think overall, he's smart. He's amazing. He's an amazing businessman. He's, I mean I disagree with him on a lot of things but I also agree with him on some stuff. So I think it's just going to be fun to watch, and I think overall, you know, probably involve a significant improvement on Twitter, both in terms of the tools we as users of Twitter have at our disposal, in terms of monetization, and in terms of a broader spectrum of speech being allowed on Twitter I think all of those are positives that must hopefully will bring forward. Did you not think because to me the, I mean I agree with a lot of that but I also think that the response to him taking it over, and the things he said in particular has been so predictable and just is so revealing in such an unbelievably like predictable way. He is now he's not affiliated supposedly with the right so yeah, the left is forget even though remember that Elon Musk was a huge Obama supporter. He's been affiliated with the left, most of his career, most of his life. It's only in recent years that he's decided that the kind of the far left, the crazy left is too wacko for him. And on most issues. I don't think he's particularly free market I don't think he's particularly on the right. You know, for example he's for socialized medicine in the United States and things like that so it'll be interesting to see what his political evolution actually is. But yes people are freaking out I'd love it. It's fun to watch. And, and, you know, let's see what he actually does with it that's that's going to be interesting and let's see how people respond to it. So, there's no downside in my view to this really succeeds or fails. It's going to be from my perspective, going to be interesting and fun to watch it develop. But it's also just there are so many aspects of this but it's so funny and so predictable the way that they try to villainize him as in like I have no idea like I don't think it's necessarily the ideal situations have to be dependent on one guy and his personality for things to work out well so I don't want to be saying, Oh, he's definitely the most amazing guy ever and he's going to solve everything but basically just taking the situation as it is currently. He's taken over this company and he's basically said, Okay, I think there should be free speech in general as a principle for everyone I think this is important in the free democratic society and just saying that has resulted in all the people who for ages were saying, Oh there is no restriction on free speech on Twitter anyway everyone can say whatever they want and there's no ban and anyone who claims that anyone's getting shadow banned or that anyone's getting centered on Twitter is just making it up and it's conspiracy there. And he's saying, Oh my God, having freedom of speech in general on Twitter is going to be the end of the world this proves Elon Musk is like a fascist right wing lunatic even though he's literally just said basically, I believe that in general people who I disagree with should be allowed to say stuff He's saying what what the left is traditionally advocated for and he's saying it, and they're flipping out which which is revealing them to be, you know, promoters of restricted speech and known that and now it's now it's out in the open. But I would say that's central that's more an essential to their current worldview not just the left a lot of like mainstream liberal outlets I see an end for example they're absolutely desperate to restrict people's ability to I mean, I mean, if you think Fox is a bastion of free speech then you know that's not true either. No, I don't think I don't think box in free speech either necessarily but I think that it's not something I think that this sensor is this when it comes to presenting people saying things you disagree with online as misinformation which needs to be shut down at the moment is being spearheaded in the mainstream in the mainstream space by people who traditionally describe themselves as liberal and left there's not to say that I don't think there are those forces on the right in the mainstream. The foxes is basically ban me during the 2012 election because I was too critical of presidential candidates and of the Republicans. They since 2016 they basically banned me from Fox completely because I was too critical of Donald Trump. And you go in front of a Republican group right wing group and advocate for immigration, and they will shout you down they will yell you down they will cancel you right there on stage just like a left wing group will. So I'm I'm while I agree with you completely about the evil of the left and the thing I think the challenge that we live the world in which we live today is that if the right got a hold of social media, they would clearly ban a lot of speech that they didn't like I don't believe today that it's only the left that's that that that wants to silence people I think it's across the political this is why I think it's so scary. It was just the left. Yeah we can overcome that we can fight them the problem today is that that both that the left is not adopting the left tactics, when it comes to this. And what we're seeing is an across the board agreement on the fact that it's okay to silence the other side. It's okay to cancel people, even though the right claims them all high ground I don't think they have it. I'm worried about free speech. I'm worried that because of this disinformation board I worry about the governmental level I worry about real censorship right now. You know, Musk, I think is relatively a voice of sanity. And you're seeing the left freak out about it. It'll be interesting to see if he actually implements everything he wants to implement. What kind of pressure the right puts on him and and whether they'll you know they'll be pressure on that side as well. But I'm, you know, again, I think yes that the left has been the voice that is being primarily behind censoring and canceling what scares me is that the right is trying to catch up with that. We now face a unified field out there of people who just want to reduce the amount of speaking that happens. Yeah, well yeah no I agree with a lot of that I have no doubt that if they had as much institutional power, a lot of the same people on the right would be potentially pushing for similar types of censorship, although to me it just does seem salient for example, with this Elon Musk tape gover, looking at it from a neutral standpoint because I wouldn't very strongly identify with any positional and political spectrum. It's the same people and it's the same outlets who are predictably demanding more censorship and that has tended to be liberal mainstream. It's all the left, because Elon Musk is viewed right now as coming from the right. Who knows what he's actually coming from. So, alright so sticking on the Musk vague topic. Not just on the censorship, censorship issue but also just generally something which is kind of almost hilarious to me, but also really really off putting is the way that his, he is criticized. He's been criticized before the takeover but many of the things he's criticized for are things which should, in my opinion, be being celebrated so for example he created the world, more or less from scratch the world's biggest electric and autonomous simultaneously is more or less leading the charge of humanity to become multi planetary as he puts it basically go to Mars. He's leading the space race. He's involved in like so many different companies like Neuralink brain machine interfaces. He's also trying to increase the free speech stuff on Twitter but that's just kind of like a side issue which is doing which is never less dominate the news. For doing this, he's criticized by, for example, Lisbeth Warren who's like a leading left wing politician in the US for being a freeloader she refers to him as when her entire life is essentially being just more or less like not doing anything very effective in the political sphere and then she's calling someone who's trying to make all this active change a freeloader as if he's wasting time. He calls him a billionaire who's just trying to get attention stuff like that so they're so so so critical of this guy. No it's disgusting. It truly is disgusting and and and look a now I'm not a big fan of Tesla because really the company was was only survived because they got massive government subsidies, both in terms of carbon offsets from other auto companies are forced by the government and direct subsidies both from the federal level in the state of California. But look what they really don't like about Elon Musk is that he is an optimist. He is a kind of person who is driving humanity forward is making the world a better place he talks beautifully about mankind's need to be an interplanetary species about, you know, a positive future future that in which we can thrive and be successful. And that is particularly on the left it despised and hated because you know they believe the world's gonna end tomorrow they want they want all this money going for poverty relief as if as if redistribution of wealth has ever So, time and time again he comes out and he says, we can do anything. You know, we can be successful, we can achieve great things, and that they find offensive and and and they rebel against that and you're seeing this hatred now. And on top of that, the fact is that Elon Musk became the richest man in the world without really generating a lot of income for himself that right most of his wealth on all of his wealth is basically tied up in stock in different companies. Because that stock has never been realized. He actually hasn't paid a lot of taxes until recently when he started selling stock. All up in arms because the guy's not selling paying a lot of taxes, he's not paying a lot of taxes, because he doesn't his wealth is all paper wealth tied up in stocks that have not been sold. And that we don't tax that and it would be insane to tax that. But then recently he sold a bunch of stock and it's turned out I think that he's paid more taxes than any human being has ever paid on planet Earth or something like that. But they see they view the left views your value as a human being, not by what you achieve, not by the progress you make, not by the technology you invest. They view your worth as a human being by how much taxes you pay by what you contribute to the government to to the force that is the only good in the world right they view everything as government centric. And you might invent a technology that changes the world and it makes the world a better place doesn't matter did you pay any taxes. They don't want individuals to prove that they can change the world they wanted all to go through government they want government to get all the credit. They want central planning they want complete control, they are authoritarian in their soul, and they hate individual initiative they hate individual entrepreneurs, they, you know they despise all of that. Alright, tangentially, what do you make of that because I know this is something you wrote books about a while ago and I don't know how much you address it now but it's something which I talked about a lot in this podcast. What is your view of the discussion around radical Islamism and Israel, because this is only tangentially rated in the sense that it's a topic that if you tried to discuss your face a lot of pushback. That's the people we've just been discussing. If you say anything out of the specific kind of rigid ideological barriers on either side of what you're allowed to think. But I don't agree with them on that so what's your take. Okay, I think that radical Islam or Islam or fascism or Islamic totalitarianism which is a term we kind of adopted at the Ironman Institute after 911 or jihadism however you want to call it. The commitment within a certain percentage of Muslims to a totalitarian view of the world to imposing their religion on the rest of us, and using violence against anybody who stands in their way. That is an evil ideology. It manifests itself in evil that is in terrorist attacks and and attempts to scare us into submission. And it has to be recognized that there is that that idea that ideology within the world of Islam, how big is it, how popular is it, how influential is it. That's an empirical question. And there's a variety of different views on that, but it is out there. And, and it is an ideology that needs to be destroyed because it's it's not within the realm of ideologies that we say okay. Yeah, it's just a disputation it's just a matter of arguing it's just a matter of reasoning, these people want to use violence against me and the only way to suppress somebody who wants to use violence against you is to use violence against them. And I, I'm a big believer in destroying the ideology of Islamic totalitarianism both intellectually and militarily physically, I think one has to identify the sources of this ideology, and I think in this sense, Iran, and in an sense, Saudi Arabia have been major sources of ideology, and that needs to stop and it needs to stop either, you know, maybe Saudi Arabia we can influence on them to stop funding these things. Iran you'd probably have to militarily stop them but the last thing you want is for regime like Iran who believes in this totalitarian ideology to get nuclear bombs and this is why I think it's so important to restrain the Iranian regime. How does that relate to your understanding of the situation in Israel in the Middle East, more broadly. Well, look, Israel is a free country. It's a Western country in a sense of its respect for rights and its respect for property and its respect for free speech. It is either with Westernized country in that sense it's a good country. It's an ideal country there are lots of problems in Israel and I'm a huge critic of Israel particularly when I'm in Israel and talking to Israelis. There's a lot of things that Israel does wrong, but fundamentally, it is a good country and fundamentally its enemies particularly Hamas and Hezbollah and Iran Iranian regime and through the Iranian regime the Syrian regime. They represent this totalitarian Islamic element. They are the enemies of the West. They represent violence and suppression and authoritarianism and really totalitarianism. And to the extent that Israel is at the front line of this battle between the West and totalitarian Islam. We should support Israel's attempts to defend itself and to defeat Islamic totalitarianism, whether it's to defeat Hamas and Hezbollah or whether it's to take out the nuclear program in Iran, or to suppress the rise of Islamism in Syria. All of that is something the West should support and therefore it should support Israel and its attempts to do so. It used to be the terrorists in Israel were primarily secular, the PLO was a secular organization, but that has shifted completely now the enemy Israel faces is really an Islamist jihadist Islamic totalitarian enemy. So I think do you think there's any relationship between the two issues is discussed and then how we're kind of generally taught to think about it in the West or what the kind of standard view of the conflict is and have you think that shifted over time and if so how Well, there's no question. I mean, basically, we resent in the West, the left has taught us, and to some extent Christianity has taught us to resent success to resent prosperity to resent strength. And when when Israel was poor, when Israel was weak, when Israel was viewed as just a bunch of Jews who just survived the Holocaust and could do, you know, could barely survive. Everybody loved Israel that's before the 1967 war, when Israel won a war in six days and defeated the armies of seven Arab countries that suddenly was proven to be strong and powerful and successful. Suddenly, particularly in Europe, and the left in America flipped. They from loving Israel, they turn to hating Israel and then they look for somebody who was suffering and weak and, and that was the Palestinians. You know, we resent anybody standing up for Western values we resent anybody standing up for their own success we resent that self interest. And we're seeing that, you know, all over the West, the West is becoming more and more anti Israeli. And, and some extent, again, you know that the left. It's broader than just the far left it's it's all over Europe but certainly in the UK. You're seeing more and more resentment towards Israel and tolerance for the violence of an authoritarianism are Islam. All over Europe. European countries are cowering will make fun of Jesus will make fun of Jews will make fun of anybody. We won't make fun of Muhammad God forbid right. And we take down paintings and museums we we we silence ourselves we don't say certain things hate speech laws in the UK prohibit you from saying certain things about Islam. We are basically cowering before this ideology. If you have time for one more question or sure. One more thing I really want to ask you quickly about because I've heard you mentioned once that you used to be super left when you're like 15 or something and that's like everybody growing up in Israel. When I was 1516 I was a socialist. I was very much a collectivist I was very much what you call a Jewish nationalist and a socialist at the same time, just like most people in Israel with the time and luckily somebody handed me a copy of Atlas shrugged, and that that completely changed my life and flipped me completely so. While I fought the book. At the end of the day I ran one so I encourage all your listeners to read I ran fountain had an hour shrugged and it's a it's a, whether you agree or not, it's going to be a profound experience because it'll challenge your beliefs and you know, it'll cause you to question what you believe, no matter how way you land up in the end, it'll be good for you. All right, awesome. Well, that's a great point to end so you're on thanks so much for coming on the e2 review show and where can people find you like they can follow you. Yeah, I mean just Google my name you're on book or on YouTube I have a very active channel I put out a lot of content on YouTube hopefully as you can subscribe to my channel. I am on Twitter. I haven't been kicked off of Twitter yet. I'm on Facebook, although I don't get Facebook Facebook is a black hole for me so I don't quite understand how Facebook works. So I spend more time on Twitter, and by primarily on YouTube. You can also find information about I ran it I ran.org a y n r a n d dot org. Awesome. All right. Thanks a lot for coming on the show. Thanks. Thanks for having me on.