Latest / Yaron Brook Show / Plague?; Climate Suit; Debt; Brazil Elections; Spain; Cornell7; TX Vacs; AI App | Yaron Brook Show

Transcript

Plague?; Climate Suit; Debt; Brazil Elections; Spain; Cornell7; TX Vacs; AI App | Yaron Brook Show · Yaron Brook Show

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: The latter fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: This is the Yaron Brook Show. All right, everybody. Welcome
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: to Yaron Brook Show on this Monday, October 5th. I
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: hope everybody is had a fantastic weekend and you're ready
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: for this, uh, this coming week. Uh, let's see. Uh,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: you've got a, a lot, quite a bit to cover today.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: Let me just, uh, do something here.
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: Uh, but yeah, this, uh, this week I expect, uh, uh,
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: this week I expect to do shows every day.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: So, uh, we should be on track and, um, uh,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: We have Nikos on Saturday. We'll have a show on Sunday.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: We'll have a Critics of Capitalism show. Full, full agenda.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: This week, next week, the following week, unless something happens.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Something usually happens, but hopefully it doesn't happen. All right.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: Let's jump in with the plague. The plague. Darya Shipalova,
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: a 28-year-old lab technician at the Ikust Company. anti-plague research
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: institute that's a good one the anti-plague research institute in
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: siberia i died um three days ago on october 2nd
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: after severe pneumonia now there was there were conflicting reports
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: about this so initially um the the the the governor
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: local governor said something like uh or local media reported
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: that she broke a test tube containing plague bacteria about
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: a week earlier, fell ill, and then died. Later, you know,
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: they denied that, and they said that no microorganisms related
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: to the girl's professional activities were found. So this is
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: not related to what she was doing at the Anti-Plague
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: Research Institute. They called it, her death, pneumonia of undetermined origin.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: The health agency says there was no lab accident and
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: the situation is stable. And yet, and yet, three local
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: hospitals plus a children's hospital have been put under three-week quarantines.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: Roughly 200 contacts are under daily observation and testing. There's
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: a mask mandate at the Irkutsk aluminum plant. Supposedly, Moscow
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: airports are temperature screening whole plane loads arriving from Irkutsk.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: And Kyrgyzstan and other neighbors are supposedly tightening border sanitary checks. Now, again,
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: a lot of this is rumors we don't really know. And,
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: you know, again, We don't know. And the real problem
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: here is lack of information, as we'll see. So, I mean,
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: there's already talk about a cover-up, right? A regional governor
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: first issued out of the plague, then edited his post
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: to possibly. A town posted a travel warning and then
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: deleted it within two hours. Pro-Kremlin TV deleted posts on
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: hospitalization numbers. Washington is saying we're monitoring the situation closely.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: Calls for focus, not alarm. The CDC is watching. Anyway,
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: so I texted Amish to ask him what he thought.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: And he's been on television all day commenting on this.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: So I got to see some of the clips. Amish Adalja,
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: our expert on such issues. And so he's been on
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: TV all day commenting on this. I got to catch
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: some of those clips today. And basically, it doesn't make
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: any sense. Like, the plague. Plague. Well, plague was horrible
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: and deadly and devastating because there was no treatment. It's
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: before the germ theory. It's before antibiotics. It's before we
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: knew how to treat it. But the reality is that plague, including...
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: Pneumonic plague, which is in the lungs, not bubonic plague,
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: which is not transferable by humans, but by ticks. But
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: even pneumonic plague that spreads from person to person through
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: the air, you know, it's fatal if untreated, but it's
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: treated easily with antibiotics. So if she broke a vial,
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: they knew it was the plague. Why didn't they give
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: her antibiotics? Why did she not recover? I know I'm coughing.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: I apologize. I drank something, and it went the wrong way,
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: and it's still residue, and it's taking time to clear out.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: I apologize for the coughing. I think it's going to
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: go away soon, but right now it's there. Anyway, and
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: my coughing has nothing to do. I promise. This is
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: not a cover-up. This is real. My coughing has nothing
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: to do with the plague. or COVID or any other
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: bird flu I might have contracted, I don't know, while
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: traveling on airplanes around the world and in anti-plague labs
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: that I might have visited in some unknown, unspecified country. But,
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm not saying it's, I'm just saying it's
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: probably unlikely, certainly not, you know, who knows, but not
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: the plague. Anyway, so why if she had the plague,
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: normal plague, why was she not treated? What did she
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: die from? Indeed, what did she die from? They say pneumonia.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: But what tests have they run? What has been the diagnosis?
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: No information. And this is the problem, of course, with Russia.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: We just don't know. I mean, is this the beginning
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: of some pandemic that they're not saying? Is it some
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: biological weapon she was testing? If she was, why was
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: she in a suit? You'd think that as you're playing
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: around with plague in a test tube, you're not actually exposed.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: You'd think you'd be in a hazmat suit. In other words,
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: we don't know. We have no idea. And it's the Russians.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: So we don't trust anything they're saying. And indeed, the
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: whole idea of, you know, of quarantine doesn't make sense
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: if it's the plague. Because the plague, again, antibiotics, no problem.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: So why are they quarantining? Why are they doing contract?
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: Why are they following people? You know, so all of
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: this doesn't make any sense. The issue is not, let's
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: panic because the plague is coming. The plague is not
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: a problem. We have plague cases in the United States, right?
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: particularly in the western part of the United States, you
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: still get the plague, and you treat it with antibiotics,
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: and you're fine. Now, you have to treat it early.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: That's the one thing about pneumonic plague, you have to
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: treat it early. But here they knew, because that was
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: in the vial, maybe, if you get what they're talking about, right?
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: So the real worry here is, and you do have
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: to worry, right? is that we're just not getting information
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: out of the Russians, and we can't trust anything they say.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: The anti-plague institutes in Russia are Soviet-era networks that study
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: the world's most dangerous pathogens. So, you know, who knows
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: what they were doing there? Who knows what she died from?
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: We just don't know. The problem is not the bacteria.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: It's a regime that lies. Remember Chernobyl? If you don't
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: know Chernobyl, watch the HBO series on Chernobyl. One of
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: the best things in television ever. Chernobyl was a great show.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: And it showed you exactly how the Soviet Union dealt
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: with a nuclear catastrophe. One can only just imagine how
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: the Russians would deal with a lab leak just Remember
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: how the Chinese dealt with Wuhan. So we don't trust
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: authoritarian states. They hide accidents. They cover it up, which
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: does more harm than anything else. More harm than anything else.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: So the challenge here is, you know, we don't, We
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: just don't know what's going on because of the authoritarian
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: nature of the Russian authorities. I'll keep an eye on this.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: If it actually develops into something real, if it's something
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: we actually should worry about, we'll bring Amos on and
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: we'll have a conversation about it Uh, and we'll get
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: some of the facts, some of the facts about it.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: All right. Um, interesting case today in front of the
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: Supreme court, Suncor versus County commissioners of Boulder County. Um,
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: This is a case where ExxonMobil and Suncor, oil companies,
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: are appealing a Colorado Supreme Court ruling that let Boulder's
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: state law climate suit go forward. So Boulder basically is
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: suing the oil companies under state law, state climate lawsuit
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: that allows them to sue the oil companies for climate change,
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: for climate change. uh boulder claims that the companies did
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: two things one they misled the public about climate and
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: second they harmed the climate by producing oil there are
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: dozens of similar lawsuits in cities and states all around
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: the country waiting for this to be decided So, you know,
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: you can understand this, right? If climate change causes us
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: all harm, then we should go after the people who
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: cause climate change and demand compensation for the harm that
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: they have done. Now, this is crazy, right? This is
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: literally crazy stuff. But I don't know that there's any
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: doctrine that the Supreme Court can appeal to to see
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: how really crazy this is. Now, let's assume for the
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: purpose of what we're doing is that there's real harm, right?
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: Climate change is real. Oil causes climate change. Should you
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: be allowed to sue? The people causing it? And who
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: causes it? Is it the oil companies producing the oil?
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: Is it you and me using that oil?
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: Is there any limit?
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: You could sue every business that uses fossil fuels. This
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: is really, you know, ridiculous. It is ridiculous law to
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: allow this to go forward, right? I mean, it's fundamentally
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: an attempt to use state tort law, right, liability law,
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: To accomplish what they haven't been able to do in
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: the legislature. That is tax fossil fuel companies. Punish fossil
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: fuel companies. And here's the thing about activities that we
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: all engage in that cause harm. There's nobody to sue.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: You can't sue anybody for pollution from automobiles in Los Angeles.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: You don't like it, you move. You can't sue anybody
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: for fossil fuel use even if climate change is causing damage.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: And how do you offset the damage caused by fossil
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: fuels in a lawsuit like that with the benefits that
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: you get from the use of fossil fuels? So... There's
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: no way to legislate this, or not legislate this, arbitrate this. Now,
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: given that dozens of cities and states are going to
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: follow this lawsuit, have already filed lawsuits, and are waiting
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: to see how this case pans out, this could be
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: billions or trillions of dollars worth of redistribution of wealth.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: And this is what this really is. It's a redistribution
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: of wealth. They don't really, I mean, the company's misled
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: the public about climate. I mean, Al Gore has been
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: telling us about climate forever. Who are we talking about?
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: Misled us about what? If this is even true, then
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: everybody's known about it for a long, long time. Really,
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: this is all about This is all about redistribution of wealth.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: This is all about the oil companies paying for the perceived,
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: but probably non-existent or non-identifiable, easily identifiable damage supposedly being caused.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: I mean, the core legal problem is one that I
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: think Kavanaugh today pressed hard on. So today, this was
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: before the Supreme Court was about whether to overturn what
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: the Colorado Supreme Court has already ruled, that the lawsuit
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: can go ahead. Even if the Supreme Court rules that
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: it can go ahead, it still has to go to trial.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: But what all companies are hoping is the Supreme Court says, no,
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: this is illegitimate, it can't go ahead, and shuts it down.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: And Kavanaugh today pressed hard. He said, you know, Greenhouse
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: gas emissions are inherently interstate and international. Colorado can't regulate
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: what happens when Iowa burns coal or when China builds
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: a thousand coal plants. If state tort law can impose
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: damages based on global atmospheric emissions, then every state becomes
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: a de facto regulator of every emitter everywhere. And that's
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: not state tort law anymore. Again, you know, that's just
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: the kind of international climate, you know, almost legislation, regulation
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: that Congress has specifically not done, not engaged in. So
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: it's hard to tell what's going to happen here. Robert's
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: Roberts on the Republican side showed some openness to some
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: of the claims, but worried about every municipality in every
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: state suing. Kavanaugh seems skeptical. Kagan leaned towards the view
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: that the Clean Air Act blocks such lawsuits. That'll be
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: interesting because I'm sure they're counting on Kagan's vote. Jackson
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: was asking about whether the case is premature or and
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: maybe they should go to trial first and then come
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: to the Supreme Court. Alito, who had probably voted to
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: overturn this, overturn the Colorado Supreme Court decision, has accused
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: himself because of his wife's stockholding. She must own Exxon
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: or Suncor or both stock. So it's going to be interesting.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: If it's a 4-4 tie... then this Colorado Supreme Court
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: ruling stands, but no precedent is set. Now, we don't
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: expect a ruling until late June, but, I mean, this
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: is just trouble waiting to happen. I mean, I hope
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: they overrule this, but it would take a lot of
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: courage for this court to do that, and I just...
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: given Robert's openness to this, I don't know if that's
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: going to happen. Look, liability, liability, tort. I believe, you know,
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: we'll bring in a lawyer and ask, but I believe
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: liability is a specific defendant who caused a specific harm.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: The harm here comes from billions of voluntary purchases of
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: a legal product by every person, in Boulder, including the
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: county government that uses fossil fuels to heat the buildings
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: that it uses to run the cars or if it's
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: an electric cars to fuel the electricity. To pick out
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: to all companies and to sue them is ridiculous and ludicrous.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: I mean, if you were going to do this, the
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: only answer to this has to be to Everybody pay
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: a tax. That's what they call the carbon tax, right?
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: But here, you have to ask the question, of, is
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: there real damage? What is the damage? Is the Earth
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: getting warmer bad? Or is the Earth getting warmer good?
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: It might be bad for some places. It might be
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: good for other places. How do you balance all that out?
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: What about the increased greenery? You know, there's a million
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: things that go into this. And of course... that isn't
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: taking account the question.
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: Of if.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: Fossil fuel is good. Well, yeah, I mean, we know
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: that because everybody's using them and everybody's using them for
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: their own improvement. So, juries and judges and courts are
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: not the place for this. I mean, I don't think
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Congress is either. But certainly if Congress won't do it,
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: this isn't the way to get the policy through. But
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: this is how the courts function. Sadly, since the 1960s,
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: we have used tort and deep pocket liability regimes to
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: redistribute wealth where legislatures refuse to do so. Now, it's
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: true that lying to customers is fraud. And it can
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: be tried as fraud. But what exactly do companies lie about?
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: And how did this affect customers exactly? What are the damages?
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: How would you even estimate them? I mean, these companies
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: are producing energy. And that energy makes our life possible.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: That energy... makes existence of human beings today on this
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: earth possible, whether it's the heating or the air conditioning
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: or the driving or the flying or the electricity or
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: everything else. Fossil fuels makes prosperity in Boulder, Colorado possible.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: I mean, you're suing the oil industry for what? Doubling lifespans?
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: Improving human well-being. So it gets a little warmer. Ski
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: resorts might go out of business. I don't know. Ski
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: season might be shorter. Okay. Here, I highly recommend, by
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: the way, getting Alex Epstein's app. Alex AI. I have
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: it on my phone. I can ask Alex, hey, what
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: do you think of the Boulder case at the Supreme Court?
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: And I'll read you what it says. I mean, some
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: of what I said, right? The timing here is remarkable.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: Our arguments were literally today. Let me give you my
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: honest take. That's why I asked, because our arguments were today.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: But this is Alex, so. The Boulder case is fundamentally
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: an attempt to use state tort law to accomplish what
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: democratic legislatures have refused to do, tax and punish fossil
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: fuel companies for their product's existence. The deceptive marketing framing
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: is a fig leaf. Bolda isn't really complaining that Exxon
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: lied to them. They're complaining that wildfires and floods cost
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: money and they want a corporation to pay for it.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: The core legal problem of Bolda's theory is the one
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: Kavanaugh pressed hard on today. Renounced gas emissions are inherently
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: interstate and international. Colorado can't regulate what happens in Ohio
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: and when China builds a thousand, I was actually reading
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: this earlier, if state tort law can impose damages based
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: on global atmospheric emissions, then every state becomes a de
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: facto regulator of every emitter everywhere. That's not top law.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: That's a backdoor to the kind of international climate regime
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: that Congress has specifically not enacted. On the deceptive marketing framing, specifically,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: I've written about this directly. This is Alex. The claim
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: that all companies committed fraud by expressing skepticism about climate
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: catastrophism is constitutionally incoherent. All the underlying scientific evidence was public.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: Disagreeing with the consensus view on climate sensitivity isn't fraud.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: It's speech. And frankly, the catastrophist predictions they were supposedly
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: concealing from, many of those predictions have turned out to
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: be wrong. The wild card is a leader's recusal, a
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: 4-4 deadlock, lest the Colorado Supreme Court ruling stand, which
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: would be a disaster, opening the floodgate for 25-plus similar
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: climate accountability. Well, many more, I think. cases nationwide to
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: proceed simultaneously. What's your take? Do you think, I mean,
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: this is Alexei, do you think legal theory has merit,
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: or does this feel more like litigation as policymaking to you? Well,
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: I think it's worse than litigation as policymaking. It's bad policymaking, right?
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: So even if Congress wanted to do this, we'd be
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: against it as well. So the whole thing is unreal.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: There's no catastrophe here. There's no catastrophic climate change. There's
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: no great damages. The benefits far exceed damages. But the
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: point is, you can have Alex AI in your pocket
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: and you can ask it these questions and get a
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: pretty good response. So, and this follows, you know, they
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: follow what you've viewed the sector marketing angle, you know,
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: and other stuff. Your Colorado wins, what does that actually
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: mean for energy companies and prices and so on. So
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: you can actually have a conversation with Alex about this.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: So check out alexepstein.substack.com. That's how you subscribe, and you
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: can get Alex AI as part of that subscription. All right.
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: Let's see.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: It'll be interesting to see how the Supreme Court rules
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: on this. I fear that it's going to let the
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: Colorado case stand partially thinking this case is going to
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: come back to us anyway. Ultimately, we'll have another opportunity
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: to overturn it. Now doesn't seem like the right time.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: I don't know. We'll see what actually happens. It would
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: be great if they overturned this and they shut this
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: whole avenue down because that's what should be done. That's
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: what should be done. Let's see. Remind you to ask questions.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: Super Chat is open. Ask questions about anything and ask
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: questions about whatever you want to ask about, news or non-news,
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: but instead of asking questions in the chat, if you
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: actually want me to answer, ask in the Super Chat.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: The gross federal debt, past $ 40 trillion. We talked about
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: this a while ago, but this is ahead of CBO,
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: the budget offer, the Congressional Budget Office forecast of $ 39. 4
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: trillion for the fiscal year. Debt held by the public versus,
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: I guess, debt held by Social Security and debt held
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: by the Fed is $ 32 trillion, which is roughly 100%
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: of GDP. Congressional Budget Office sees $ 43. 3 trillion by the
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: end of 2028. But, of course, it's been wrong so far.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: So expect that number to be much higher or higher.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: I don't know how much more higher it will be.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: If you look at inflation adjusted, Trump's two terms so
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: far added $ 13. 3 trillion to the debt. Obama held the
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: record beforehand at $ 13. 2 trillion. So Trump's presidency now is
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: by far the presidency with the most debt accumulation of
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: any president in American history, if you can buy in
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: both terms. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the one
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: beautiful bill, one big beautiful bill added $ 4. 7 trillion to
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: deficits over 2026 to 2035. And of course, the Iran
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: war will add more government spending that's unaccounted for to
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: those numbers. What's the market's response? Well, 10-year treasuries are
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: at 535. 30-year is at 5.7. These are the highest
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: since the early 2000s. And, of course, we all know
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: that mortgage rates now are at what? Last week, 7.28%.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: So harder for you to buy a home. That is
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: the outcome. Now, you know, remember, gum and borrowing is
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: just deferred taxation. It'll either have to be paid back
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: through increased taxation in the future or paid back by
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: printing money, which is a different kind of tax. It's
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: called an inflation tax. Either way, you have to pay
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: for it. Nobody else can. The engine for this, the
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: engine for the deficit and therefore the debt is entitlements
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: and now interest payments on the debt. This is something
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: that is bipartisan. Both parties like this, want this, but
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: neither one wants to stop it. There are no proposals
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: to somehow cut government spending in any kind of meaningful way.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: Democrats will want to increase taxes. Republicans will want to
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: decrease taxes, but that's the only lever they're willing to
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: play with. And no proposals to cut spending. And certainly
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: no proposals to cut entitlements, which is the only thing
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: that really matters. And we, one way or the other,
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: all of us, all of us who are Americans at least,
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: will pay for it. I think the non-Americans will also
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: pay for it as well. Romans says the state cannot
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: go bankrupt according to MMT. That's true. The state cannot
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: go bankrupt because they can always print money. That's called
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: no inflation. So they can inflate their way out of it.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: But one way or the other, the state gets no
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: free lunch. One way or the other, the debt has
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: to be paid for and the state doesn't produce anything.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: And the only people can pay for it are the producers. Therefore,
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: it comes out of your pocket. All right. Let's see. Yeah. Yesterday,
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: there was elections in Brazil. Significant results. Significant results. One,
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: the right represented by Flavio Bolsonaro, which is the son
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: of Javier Bolsonaro, who was president five years ago, Flavio
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: Bolsonaro got more votes, got 47% of the votes, versus Lula,
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: the leftist candidate, who got 45.16%. Now, neither candidate got
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: over 50, so there will be a runoff on October 25th.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: But that is a very, very good showing of for
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: Flavio Bolsonaro and basically makes him the favorite for the runoff.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: His father won with a lot fewer votes. So his
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: father ran and there was a runoff. His father got
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: a lot fewer votes and ultimately won. These numbers suggest
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: that he's got a very good chance of winning the presidency.
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: It's hard to tell from afar, right? I'm not that
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: immersed in Brazilian politics. I will be in Brazil later.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: later this month, so I'll give you a better sense then. Actually,
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: I'll be there around the time of the election. I
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: think I speak in Brazil the day before the election
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: or something like that. So I'll be able to update
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: you from Brazil when the election actually happens. But Flavio,
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: you know, have you ever, Bolsonaro struck me generally as a,
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: not a very smart person, pretty corrupt, kind of right-wing populist.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: His one virtue is that he didn't really care that
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: much about economic policy, so he assigned the economic policy
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: to a free market economist, Goetz. I forget his full name,
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: but he assigned economic policy to And to the extent
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: that he could get anything done, good things economically happened
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: in Brazil under him. His son seems to be at
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: least less, I don't know, less dumb, for lack of
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: a different word, than his father. And we will see. Again,
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: doesn't seem to be that interested in economics. His two
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: big issues are reforming the legislature, the judiciary, which is
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: famously corrupt and very much favors the left and was
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: in Lula's pocket for much of his presidency. So he
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: wants to reform that and crime, right? He's big on
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: law and order. Now, crime in Brazil is horrible. It's
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: really bad.
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: And....
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: If he can do something about it, that'd be great.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: I don't think his father really did that much, but
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: certainly Lula did almost nothing. So hopefully they can crack
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: down on crime and they will do something about crime. Now,
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: there's every reason to believe Flavio is corrupt. Lula is
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: definitely corrupt. I mean, he served in jail for corruption.
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: And his conviction was overturned by the courts that are
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: very leftist and very corrupt. So Lula is corrupt. Bolsonaro
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: is corrupt. The third place finisher was Renan Santos, who
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: called both of them corrupt, both of them crooks. I
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: think he's right. But it is what it is, right?
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: I think the financial markets are very positive about this.
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: Brazil's currency and stock market soared. this morning as a
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: consequence of Bolsonaro's win. They would love to have Lula gone.
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: I remember I was in Brazil the day Lula got arrested,
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: was put in handcuffs in the back of a police car,
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: ultimately was convicted of corruption. And I remember, I mean,
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: I was in front of a group of libertarians, I think.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: I mean, the cheering that was going on, the celebration,
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: I don't think any of them thought Lula would be
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: elected a few years later, but he was. Anyway, The
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: other aspect of the election yesterday, which is important, is
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: that Bolsonaro's Liberal Party actually won the largest Senate bloc.
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: So in the past, Bolsonaro was president, but he had
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: very little support in the Senate and in Parliament. It
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: turns out that they've built up a political base now,
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: and now they are the largest Senate bloc. They're not
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: a majority, but they have a significant bloc in the Senate. Also,
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: Allies of Bolsonaro won the Sao Paulo governorship and the
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: Paraná governorship. And four Bolsonaro relatives, this is a family affair,
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: won seats in Congress. So generally the Bolsonaro family and
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: the Bolsonaro political party dramatically strengthened their position in Brazilian
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: politics over the weekend. on Sunday with the election.
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: Let's see. What else do I want to say about Brazil? Yeah,
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: one of the things that Flavio said that he would do,
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: his father, Javier Bolsonaro, is sitting in jail for corruption.
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: One of the first things Flavio will probably do is,
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: you know.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: Give him an amnesty, some kind of amnesty. Whether he
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: does it or whether the Senate will do it, but
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: he was sentenced for 27 years. It wasn't actually for corruption, sorry.
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: He was sentenced for 27 years for plotting a coup.
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: His brother, Eduardo, got four years in absentia for lobbying
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: a foreign government to interfere in a trial. And, you know,
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: the prediction is that Bolsonaro would be let free, that
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: they will somehow find a way to amnesty him, and
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: that the Senate will vote for that. But look, one
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: thing is clear. Latin America is turning to the right.
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: They're fed up with leftist politics. They're fed up with
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: the socialists. They are, you know, this is part of a.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: A general shift to the right across Latin America, from
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: Colombia to Bolivia to Peru to Chile and Argentina, of course.
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: This is not a Millet right. This is much more
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: a populist, Trumpist right. But in the context of Brazil,
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: probably better than the left, right? Voters are rejecting kind
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: of the socialist status, right? But they're not really rejecting it, right?
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: They're just shifting from one form of statism, one form
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: of patronage-driven government to another form, from the left's version
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: to the right's version. It's good to see Lula gone.
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: I mean, we'll see how Flavio Bolsonaro actually governs. Again,
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: his father handed over the economy to one of the
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: best economists in Brazil. Will his son do the same thing?
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: Will free market economics be the rule of the day
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: in Brazil? That would be pretty amazing. So, you know,
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: we'll see what the rules really are. And then, of course,
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: rule of law, you get a sense that both sides
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: are corrupt here. And the rule of law matters none
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: to both of them. But, you know, what's Favre going
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: to do with government spending, with regulation, with taxes? We
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: don't know. And is amnesty, can he be a loan
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: order president and still grant his father amnesty? But it's
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: just all like the other's father is not really guilty
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: of a coup in the sense that they mean it.
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: So it's Brazil and everything seems like a co-op. Now,
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: markets are voting in the hope of liberalization. I hope
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: that's what happens. I'll again next time. I mean, later
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: this month, I will be reporting to you. about my
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: impressions of Brazil. I'll talk to Brazilians. I'll find out
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: what they think. And I'll give you firsthand reporting from Brazil.
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: I think... God, let me look at the calendar. Am
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: I going to be there during the election? That'll be
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: kind of weird. I know I'm going to be there
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: the week after the election. But I arrive in Brazil.
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm going to be there the day of
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: the election. The day of the election, I'm leaving Brazil.
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: So I arrive on the 23rd and I'll leave on
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: the 25th. The 25th is election day. So I'll be
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: there the day before election day. I'm doing a day-long
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: seminar on capitalism with some others from the Einstein Institute.
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: And we're doing it in Porto Alegre in southern, in
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: south of Brazil. But I will talk to people there.
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: I'll get a sense of what is going on. I'll
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: And I'll report back. I will be flying from there
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: to Chile, and I'll let you know what I think,
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: what's going on in Chile, and then from there to
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: Buenos Aires, talk to people there about Milé. And from
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: Buenos Aires, I will be flying back to Brazil for
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: a week of vacation in Rio de Janeiro and from
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: there to Mexico City. So I'll give you, hopefully while
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: I travel, I'll be able to do shows and give
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: you a sense of what is going on in Latin
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: America and how people.
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: How it works. Um, Brazil, I don't think has mail-in voting,
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: but it has electronic voting. It has what America refuses
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: to do. This is why they got the council quickly. They, uh,
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: they have electronic voting. It's quick, it's easy, but I guess, uh,
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: you can, you know, it's susceptible to hacking or whatever. So, um, yep.
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: Another, uh, uh, you know, election, Spain. So we talked
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: about the 87-year-old taken out, you know, she was evicted
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: from her apartment, and then there were demonstrations, and Pedro
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: Sanchez's leftist government proposed this law that would basically eliminate
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: evictions and try to do rent control and, you know,
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: a whole housing decree, emergency housing decree. We covered it
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: on a Friday. You know, an eviction freeze, you know,
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: limits on short-term leases, automatic lease renewals, landlords paying 12-month
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: rent to break a lease. So real penalties, real statism
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: in trying to control all this, all because, again, of
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: these protests, which I witnessed, again, firsthand in Madrid. I mean,
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: hundreds of these young people, almost all young, in, you know,
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: tenting out in the square, having, I think, a really
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: good time. They seem to be enjoying the protest. I
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: think that's, it looked like Occupy Wall Street, the days
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: of Occupy Wall Street. It looked very much like that. Anyway,
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: Parliament rejected the Sanchez's government proposal. Sanchez has a leftist
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: government that is actually a minority government. So it doesn't
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: have a majority in Parliament. And it governs by getting
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: some of the regional political parties, like the Catalans, to
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: vote with them, even though they're not part of the government. Well,
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: those parties broke with the government on this issue. They
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: voted against the government. And the consequence of that is
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: that I think Sanchez feels like, feels is the right word,
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: feels like this is a good opportunity for him to
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: call an election and to actually gain more votes because
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: he thinks that he has basically sided with the protesters.
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: He has basically sided with the evicted. He is siding
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: with the people paying, quote, too much for rents. And therefore,
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: this is the best time for him to run. The
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: sympathies of Spain will be with him. So even though
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: he's behind in the polls, he believes that he will
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: win as a consequence. So he has called for an election.
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: And there will be an election, I guess, on November 29th.
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: November 29th in Spain. That will be eight months ahead
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: of schedule. Right now, the polls suggest that the Popular
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: Party plus Vox, which is kind of the populist party,
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: The Popular Party is the center-right party. Vox is the
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: populist right-wing party. And the polls suggest that the combination
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: of those two would have a majority in Parliament. And,
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: you know, you remember that town in Morocco that is
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: really Spanish that was, you know, overrun by migrants? Yes.
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: a few weeks ago, that'll play to Vox, that'll play
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: to the right and their anti-immigration agenda. You know, it's
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: hard to tell how this housing stuff will play out
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: and who benefits from that. Maybe Sanchez is right and
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: it'll benefit the left. Maybe Spaniards are better at economics
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: than that and they will recognize how bad this really is. Now,
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: you know, rents have gone up a lot in Madrid.
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: from about 8, we talked about this, about 8.2 euros
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: a square meter in 2016, to 15 square meters this year,
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: so almost double in what, in 10 years. But if
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: you remember, we talked about this on Friday, right? The
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: problem in Madrid is not greedy landlords. The problem in
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: Madrid is not enough building. Tokyo, a much bigger city,
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: builds much more, and rents have barely moved in 30 years.
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: If you're a strict building and control landlords, and particularly
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: if you have rent control, yeah, rents double in a decade.
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: You'd think New York would have learned that. But no,
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: New York will not learn from Tokyo or from Austin, Texas.
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: So Sanchez is turning a supply-side crisis he helped cause
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: into a campaign slogan, Eviction freezes and lease mandates will
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: only make the rent crisis worse, not better. It will
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: shrink rental supply even further. But, you know, he doesn't care.
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: He'll run on this populist agenda. And the problem, of course,
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: is in Spain and everywhere else, is the opposition, the
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: people anti-Sanchez, the people anti-the left, are not exactly free marketers.
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: So now they're not running on build, build, build. I mean,
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: who in Spain is saying build more housing? That's the
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: solution to rent. My guess is nobody. I'm not that
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: familiar with Spanish politics, but my guess is nobody or
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: nobody substantial, nobody significant. So we'll have an election in
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: Spain later this year to comment on. We've got big elections.
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: We've got the Israeli election coming up. Well, we've got
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: the Israeli election is just after the Brazilian. So we've
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: got Brazil, Israel, U.S., Spain, and maybe some others in between.
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: But at least those four elections in the next two months. So,
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: you know, there's a lot. There's going to be a
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: lot to talk about. Lots to talk about over the
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: next two months and all pretty significant elections. I think
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: Spain going to the right will send real shockwaves through Europe,
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: really change the dynamics of Europe and NATO. it will
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: be huge, huge, and a dramatic improvement over what Sanchez
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: has done in Spain. All right, let's move to this story,
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: which is, this is obviously a tricky story. This is
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: the Cornell 7 story that it really broke out over
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: the last few days with a civil lawsuit filed by
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: a young former student at Cornell University accusing seven fraternity
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: members at the Chi Phi house of gang rape and
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: accusing the university of covering up and accusing the local authorities.
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: And so this is a civil lawsuit, not a criminal lawsuit.
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: So the standards of proof are much lower. But a
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: civil lawsuit against the university and against the seven fraternity
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: individuals that are named who alleged to have gang raped
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: her on October 19th, 2024. So, this is a complex
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: story for a number of reasons, you know, primarily because
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: originally no criminal charges were filed and we can talk
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: about why, uh, but also because of her own behavior.
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: And then because of the creepy behavior or horrible evil
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: behavior of these seven guys, um, Yeah, the girl is
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: a freak. That's amazing. The amazing that the first response
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: people have to something like this is the girl was
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: a freak. Not the guys who had sex with a
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: passed out, filled with alcohol and drugs girl lying naked
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: there and just having sex with her. They're not freaks.
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: They're not weirdos. They're not horrible human beings, disgusting human beings.
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: She's the freak. Now, she's problematic. We'll get to that.
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: But that's the thing, right? Men having sex with anybody, oh,
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: that's fine. No problem. We're cool. Even with a drugged out,
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: a semi-conscious, I mean, I can't think of anything more
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: disgusting than to be a man and to engage in
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: something like that. Well, you're not a man if you
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: engage in something like that. You're a beast. You're an animal.
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: So let's, you have to start with that. No matter
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: whether this was rape or not, these men were disgusting.
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: All right, so let's go through what exactly happened. Because
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: as I said, there are lots of issues here, right? Everybody,
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: everybody is probably, they were drunk, so that's an excuse.
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: Being drunk is not an excuse for anything. I mean, Edward,
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: would you do that? I mean, that's the standard, right?
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: So on October 19, 2024, this girl was at a
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: bar drinking. And by her own testimony, was a 5
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: out of 10 in terms of how drunk she was.
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: When she was invited by a boy, a guy, to
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: Chai Fai House, to meet up with him. She went
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: to meet up with him, and there she agreed to
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: participate in a threesome with him and one of his friends. Supposedly,
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: in the process of that sexual encounter, they plowed her
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: with additional alcohol, and according to her, you know, forced
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: her or encouraged her, she was drunk already, to consume ketamine,
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: which made her drugged out. Now, at that point, she's
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: drugged out, she's filled with alcohol. There are text messages,
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: clear text messages that these guys who just had sex
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: with her, right, are texting, Other people on some kind
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: of chat in the fraternity, hey, you know, we've got
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: a naked, you know, drugged out and what's the word
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: if you consume a drunk naked girl here, come down
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: and have sex with her. They invited other members to
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: come down. Five other guys showed up. Not all of
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: them landed up having sex with her, but some did.
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: And others didn't. She accuses them of all kinds of
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: other charges, including cursing her to take more drugs and
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: to engage in whether all sex or other sex acts.
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: With her.
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: A sworn 2024 statement, right? There are two statements, supposedly.
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: There's a lengthy interview. that campus police had with her
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: in which she describes the rape and she describes the
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: drugging and then what she considers rape on behalf of
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: the guys who joined and on behalf of from the
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: two originally then engaged further with her. And this was nonconsensual,
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: she said. There was then a shorter summary of that
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: interview that did not mention gang rape or the drugging.
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: And supposedly, campus police, that is what was given to
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: the local district attorney. So while it seems like campus
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: police took it seriously, did interviews, got witness accounts, witness statements,
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: and all of that is part of the evidence. The
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: district attorney never reviewed witness statements, but based on her
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: 2024 sworn statement, the summary of the longer interview decided
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: not to file any charges. The campus, the university did
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: enact consequences to the seven men. You know, they vary
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: in terms of in terms of severity. But, you know,
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: three of them were kicked out of Cornell. One of
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: them was banned from campus for life. He was a
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: graduate already, so they couldn't. Remember, Cornell is not a police.
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: Cornell can't put you in jail. Cornell can't. It's not
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: a criminal organization. They can punish you within the context
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: of Cornell. And they did. So two or three of
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: them got expelled. And the woman dropped out and claims
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: to have suffered significant psychological harm from all of this
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: and trauma from this. But some of them, the ones
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: who weren't involved in actual rape... got much lighter sentences.
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: So it went all the way from expulsion to basically,
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: you know, writing an essay and saying you're sorry. And
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: I don't know, some, you know, much significantly milder, significantly
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: milder sentences from Cornell University. But again, Cornell is not
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: a criminal organization. It can only do things within its scope, right? But, again,
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: no criminal charges were filed to a large extent because
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: the district attorney didn't really investigate. So it seems like
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: here Cornell took the charges much more seriously than the
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: district attorney. Now, yesterday in the Q & A after
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: the Ask Me Anything, I was asked about this. I
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: didn't have all the information. And, you know, the woman
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: who asked me this, I think said some things that
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: are not exactly true that all seven had to write
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: essays and that's it. No, I mean, they were, they were, uh,
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: they were actually, um, suspended, kicked out of the university. Uh,
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: so at least some of them, right. Uh, and, and
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: the essay was just, you know, I think one of
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: them had to write an essay. He was the one
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: accused of the most minor of the charges. Uh, and, uh, and,
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: and the essay wasn't the main thing he had to do.
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: There was other stuff. Um, There was other things. One second,
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: let me just do this. All right, so... Anyway, on
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: September 16th, she sued. So, middle of last month, she sued. And.
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: So let's see. Two of the seven were expelled. Others
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: got less of sanctions. Again, one couldn't be expelled because
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: he wasn't a student, but he got banned from campus.
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: The New York Times, unfortunately I don't have it right
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: in front of me, had basically a list of all
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: their names, which is good. So they're being named, these freaks,
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: these horrible humans, are actually named, which is good. And
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: it's got a list of each one of them, what
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: was the penalty that they actually got. So, you know,
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: it was, again, more than just having to write an essay.
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: On September 16th, she sued the seven, the fraternity. Oh,
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: by the way, the fraternity was shut down. So the
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: fraternity was shut down. She sued the fraternity. She sued Cornell.
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: She even sued the Edeka Bar and others that she claimed.
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: should have prevented all this from happening. Some of this
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: seems a little reaching. The DA, in response, the local DA,
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: in charge of the Cornell area, has reopened the case,
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: and citing new evidence, the new evidence being released as
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: part of the lawsuit, On October 7th, the governor of
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: New York took it away from the district attorney. This
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: is the same district attorney that didn't even investigate the
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: first round. And she assigned it to Attorney General Letitia
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: James as a special prosecutor for the case. The governor said, quote,
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: in what world does the district attorney not review her
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: or even request the full transcript? She said he didn't do, quote,
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: the bare minimum. And I've seen comments from other prosecutors
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: saying basically the same thing, that he clearly, clearly defaulted
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: in this case. Just let it slide. Again, you know,
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: Cornell claims it closed the chapter in 2024. It's not
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: releasing the details, although, again, the New York Times did
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: report the details. So they got a hold of the
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: punishments everybody got somehow.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: So, you know, so it's going to be interesting to
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: see exactly, you know, how this is going to work.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: You know, there's already the defense attorneys are arguing against
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: the James, Letitia James shouldn't be the special prosecutor, that
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: she should accuse herself because she's posted something. She's posted
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: stuff in the past in favor of the woman who
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: is suing. You know, AOC has called it a culture
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: of rape at elite universities. And, you know, there's a
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: 2025 Cornell survey reporting 35% of undergraduate women have experienced
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: sexual assault, or they claim to have experienced sexual assault.
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: And look, this is... It seems that, right? Evidence will
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: come out in the lawsuit, so we'll know a lot more.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: And now it's going to be prosecuted by the Attorney General,
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: so I think we'll know a lot more. It'll go
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: to court, and it'll be tried. But... So, you know,
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: I hope this goes to trial. The evidence comes out.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: If they committed rape, they should go to jail. They
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: should suffer the consequence of what they did. What Cornell did,
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: I think, is what Cornell could have done under the circumstances.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: It was up to the attorney general, the district attorney, sorry,
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: to do, to actually prosecute them criminally. Cornell might be liable.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: Beyond that, I don't know. It'll be interesting to see
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: how this plays out in court. You know, rape is rape.
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: Rape is force. Rape is coercion. And, you know, a
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: prosecutor doesn't do his job, doesn't interview the victim, doesn't
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: interview the perpetrators, doesn't investigate at all, shouldn't have that job.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: The girl consented to the first threesome. She did not consent,
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: it appears, again, we don't know yet, to being, you know,
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: to having all seven guys in the room and several
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: of them having sex with her. So what consent?
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: Now, the girl is not blameless. So let's be clear.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: You can't say the girl is blameless. Now, the guys should,
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: if they raped her, they should go to jail. If
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: they drugged her, if they coerced her in any way,
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: they should go to jail. The law here should be
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: clear and decisive and harsh. But, you know, the girl
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: is not blameless. Look, you have to be responsible for
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: your own drinking. You can't put yourself in circumstances where
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: you are drunk and are not in complete control of
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: what you are doing, of the decisions you make. You know,
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: people need to be responsible for their own lives, care
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: about their own lives. If you're going to drink yourself
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: to a point where your decision-making is questionable, then, you know,
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: go to your room and sleep it off. Don't engage
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: with other people. And this is true of the men,
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: this is true of the women, this is true of
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: all of them. Don't put yourself in situations like this. Now,
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: that's not the same guilt as the guilt of the
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: people actually using force. It is not the same. She
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: did not use force on anybody. She did not ask
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: to have violence inflicted on her. So, you know, the
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: responsibility here is clearly on the guys. clearly in the
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: guys but you got to say that morally morally don't
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: drink and put yourselves in situations where you're placing your
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: life at risk that is immoral your life is the
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: standard it's crazy you don't drink and drive you don't
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: drink and you go to a fraternity house Sadly, there
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: are people out there that will exploit you. Take that
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: into account. Think. Use your mind. Don't put yourself in
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: a position where people can indeed exploit you. So morally,
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: nobody is blameless here. But Criminally, one party is to blame.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: And even morally, they're not equal. One is just plain
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: stupid and irrational and irresponsible. The other one is violent
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: and disgusting and, you know, criminal. So, yeah, I mean,
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: I hope, I mean, look, they accused the entitled to
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: a day in court to the presumption of innocence. You know,
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: I hope this goes to court so we get clarity
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: on it, exactly what happened. The prosecutor is clearly responsible here.
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: If he'd investigated and not filed charges, okay. But he
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: didn't investigate. So hopefully, you know, and if Latifah James
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: is in any way compromised, then replace her. You want
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: this to be untainted, whatever the verdict ultimately is? And look,
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: whatever Cornell did or didn't do, universities are not substitutes
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: for the criminal justice system. They're not substitutes for court
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: of law. They're not substitutes for a trial with a jury.
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: The fact that Cornell expelled students in secret, it's not enough.
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: But Cornell can't do more than that. And if it
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: turns out the guys are innocent, then the punishment was
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: too severe. Again, this is the beauty of a court,
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: a trial. Actually bring it to trial. Actually litigate it. Otherwise, anyway,
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: let's see what happens. Of course, our amazing president has
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: already come out in an attempt to try to defend
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: the guys in this, right? And this is becoming a
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: Democratic-Republican thing, a male-feminine thing, a male-female thing, which is stupid.
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: I mean, how do we know that everybody was drunk?
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: Isn't that a question of fact that needs to be litigated?
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: How do we know whether to trust their statements and
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: whose statements to trust if we don't actually investigate, if
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: we don't interview, if we don't look for evidence, if
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: we don't ask witnesses, if we don't actually litigate this?
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: We do know there's screenshots. of the chat where the
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: guys are calling their friends down to come have sex
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: with this girl. That in and of itself, just that
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: screenshot of those texts, should be pretty incriminating, don't you think?
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: Maybe not fully for the criminality of it, but for
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: how disgusting and horrible these pseudo-human beings are. Anyway, that
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: is the Cornell 7. I'll keep you updated as if
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: this goes to trial and what exactly happens. But, you know,
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: the whole way too many men generally are way too
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: blasé about sexual violence against women. And I think that
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: Edward here represents exactly those men, the men that are
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: way too blasé way too eager to defend the men,
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: way too eager to blame the woman. She wanted it.
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: She dressed provocatively. She asked for it. How do you know?
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: But that's the presumption that they have. That's the presumption.
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: And that comes from a certain cultural inclination, right? She
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: wanted to have sex with two guys. Does that mean
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: she wanted to have sex with seven? Like if a
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: guy has a threesome with two women and then, you know,
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: does that mean he wants to have sex with everybody?
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: So we live in a culture that is very, very, very,
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: you know, at least the men in this culture, at least.
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: have a very weird attitude towards sex. It's okay for
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: men to line up to have sex with a woman,
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: a hundred guys to have sex with a woman or whatever,
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: or to rape a woman. That's fine. But a woman
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: shows a little cleavage or dresses a little provocatively, oh
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: my God, she's asking for it. It's really screwed up.
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: It really is screwed up. Sex is not that hard.
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: It's not that hard.
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: We're a rational animal. That applies if you're a guy
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: to your penis as well. But, you know, there are
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: often cases where clearly identifying a sexual crime is hard.
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: If it's just he said, she said, it's hard. If
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: it's in the context of a bedroom where both went
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: into that bedroom voluntarily, it's hard. But were there witnesses?
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: Were there, you know, were there other objective indications? That's
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: what the legal system is for. Hosh Unitas says, me,
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: I like sex. Who doesn't like sex? So that doesn't
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: prove it's hard or anything. You like says she's six.
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: She says, no, it's easy. You walk away, right? None
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: of this is hard. You don't have a right to
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: somebody else's anything. You don't have a right to this stuff.
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: You all get that in economics. That's the most bizarre
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: statement I've ever heard. Edward says it's harder for guys
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: to get laid. Okay. So it's harder for guys to
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: get laid. Go and engage in disgusting actions and disgusting
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: activity and maybe even rape because it's hard for you
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: to get laid. I mean, really? These are the rationalizations?
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: Pretty bizarre. Yeah, she didn't have sex with all seven.
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: She had sex with at least four. And the original
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: two were consensual at the beginning, but then they became
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: non-consensual later on, according to a statement. And the other
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: two were not consensual. That's a statement. Again, witnesses, evidence.
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: This is what the legal system is for. If someone
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: is screaming from a room, what do you do? Well,
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: you go in and, I mean, screaming, I assume, because
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: they're being assaulted, you go in and stop it. All right,
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: moving on. Moving on. An interesting story. Starting today, in
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: the state of Utah, Nola Health, which is a New
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: York startup, is going to be allowed to issue AI-generated
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: prescriptions for acne to Utah patients. Utah's Office of AI
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: Policy waived the rule that a licensed physician must prescribe.
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: This is amazing and really good. Now, this is how
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: it works. A patient has their face scanned. The AI
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: then picks from eight approved topical treatments and prescribes them
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: to the patients. So it diagnoses and it chooses the treatment.
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: It's a one-year pilot, renewable for two more at the
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: office's discretion. There are some safeguards, at the beginning at least.
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: A physician is going to review the first 100 patients
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: before the prescriptions go out. The next 400 will be
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: reviewed weekly after the fact. And on a monthly basis,
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: at least 10% will be reviewed by a physician after
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: the fact. The price is $ 5 a month for the app,
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: $ 50 a month for the medication. That is compared to
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: $ 150 to $ 300 for a dermatology visit. So this is
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: a cost reduction. The American Medical Association doesn't particularly like it.
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: It says AI must meet the standard of human doctors.
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: You know, the state licensing board has objected. Of course,
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: of course they would. So, um, yeah, doctors are going
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: to fight this and it is interesting. The doctors are
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: going to review the AI's decisions. I worry about the
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: incentives doctor have to, uh, to, uh, uh, question the
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: AI is decision-making because the more AI does this, the
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: less work they have. Um, So yeah, we will see.
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think this is big. It's one of
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: the first kind of handoffs to AI in the medical profession.
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: And I think we'll see more and more of this.
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: I hope we see more and more of this. And
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: it's both cost-cutting, increased efficiency, speed, and ultimately, I think,
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: improved care. And it probably frees up physicians to do
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: more of the stuff that is more complex and maybe
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: requires more of their bedside manner and their personalized attention.
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: All right. On a negative healthcare note, Attorney General Ken Paxton,
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: who's also running for the Senate, he's the GOP Senate nominee,
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: has opened an investigation in January into doctors drug makers
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: and insurers over what he calls incentives to vaccinate children.
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: These people are evil. These MAGA freaks are evil bastards.
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: In August, a separate probe of the American Academy of
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: Pediatrics is also being launched. This is under the Consumer
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: Protection Office. It's sending on document demands under the deceptive
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: trade practices law So, for example, one small Texas practice
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: got a 28 item demand for 10 years of vaccine
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: purchase records, plus a demand to stay silent. The doctor
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: says she spent $ 15, 000 in legal fees, then got a
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: second demand. There's no reports of what they mean by incentives.
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: I mean, would they get a $ 40 batch of cookies?
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: A discount, a prompt paid discount? What do they mean
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: by incentives, right? I guess the cookies and the discounts.
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: These are incentives to vaccinate kids because we know doctors,
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: they don't care about the kids. They don't care about
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: their patients. Just give them a box of cookies and
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: they'll inject anything you want into those kids. So far,
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: no findings, no charges or lawsuits. But a lot of
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: harassment of pediatricians. Pediatricians who vaccinate children because they're responsible
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: pediatricians who care about the lives of their kids. I mean,
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: at the end of the day, it's your body, your choice,
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: your doctor. You know, I think it's great that in
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: Utah they've granted one company permission to skip a licensing rule.
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: We need to do more of that. And it's horrific
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: that in Texas, they want to punish doctors for giving
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: advice that the state, the state dislikes. Utah is going
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: in the right direction. Texas in the wrong direction. So, yeah,
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: I mean, think about it. $ 15, 000 in legal bills. That's
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: like a fine. But of course, there's no Ricos. There's
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: no way to get it back. All right. So those
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: are the main stories. A lightning round. A few kind
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: of shorter stories that we have here. According to FlyDubai,
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: investigators believe that the co-pilot, Hammam El Hammami, who is
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: from Oman, 29-year-old, originally planned the attack for July. So
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: he had, this was self-made, this was, he didn't just
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: do this on impulse. He'd been thinking about this for
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: a while. He had been already moved to a desk
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: job by Oman Air over concerns of his radicalization, of
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: his extreme views. Fly Dubai, checked for criminal record, but
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: didn't check whether he was radicalized. And they didn't talk
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: to Oman Air about and get any feedback about why
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: he was placed behind a desk. A post in his
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: name on social media after the attack praised al-Qaeda's Zuhairi.
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: Israeli media reports that he told interrogators he meant to
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: crash into Ben Gurion, into the airport, and in order
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: to stop The pilot, he didn't have a knife. He
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: used the cockpit's emergency crash axe. So, yeah, evidence is
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: coming in. He is an Islamist. This was a terrorist attack.
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: Pretty horrific. I hope that the appropriate security agencies and
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: the airlines increase their monitoring of who their pilots are,
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: particularly in the Middle East. Um, we've talked about the
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: Houthis attacks on Saudi Arabia, um, but, uh, Saudi Arabia
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: is not called for help. And supposedly the Turkey and
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: Pakistan are maybe sending, uh, sending troops into, uh, Saudi Arabia.
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: I don't know exactly what those troops are going to
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: be doing, how many are coming, um, So Turkey and
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: Pakistan are coming to Riyadh's defense, maybe. Not clear exactly what.
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 1: In the meantime, Saudi-supported forces in Yemen are attacking the
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: Houthis and have made some progress in terms of beating
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: back the Houthis. So the war in Yemen continues. If
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: anything dramatic happens over there, I'll let you know. And
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: if the Turkish and Pakistani presence in Saudi Arabia becomes significant,
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: I will also let you know. Trump. You know, the
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: New York Times reported the other day that there were
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: empty seats at Trump's Ohio rally. Trump's response to that
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: was that that was a lie and that the Times
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: and other outlets should be arrested. Arrested. The president of
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: the United States, not for the first time, probably not
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: for the last time, threatening state force against the press
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: of a crowd size. Not a joke. Reality. This is
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: who we elected. This is how he thinks, feels, governs.
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 1: And finally, a Nobel Prize for Medicine was granted today
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: to Carl Dezeroth of Stanford and Peter Hagerman and George Nagel.
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 1: All three of them. I don't know where the other
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: two are from. Anyway, for optogenetics, optogenetics. These are proteins
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: from algae that let scientists turn neurons on and off
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: with light. I guess this is an important tool, has
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: become an important tool in neuroscience. So it all started
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: with a question about how green algae swim toward light,
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: and it's turned into a tool that today is used
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: in neuroscience. All right. I will be keeping track of
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: these stories. There are other stories kind of developing as
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: we speak. We'll cover those tomorrow. So that is the
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: news for this Monday, October 5th. All right. Not a
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: lot of questions, particularly not 20 and above questions. So
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: please think about supporting the show by asking questions using
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: the Super Chat function. Super Chat is available. You can
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: also use stickers just to support the show. And so
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: stickers is a great way, value for value, if you
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: benefit in some way from the show. I assume you
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: do because you're here listening. So please consider supporting the
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: show in that way. For those of you who are
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: not live, yeah, please think about using Patreon or PayPal
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: or to support the show on a monthly basis, it really,
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: really helps. If you're getting value from the show, please
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: engage in a trade, a value for value. Go on
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: Patreon or Subscribestar and make a contribution on Patreon. If
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: you do $ 10 or more, you get the podcast of
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: the show with no commercials, with no advertising. At $ 25,
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: you get to participate on the panel. that we did
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: at the AMA on Saturday. You get to participate live
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: on video and ask me questions. You know, 250 gives
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: you one-on-ones, 500 even more frequent one-on-ones. Check out the
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: different support levels and become a Patreon supporter. Today, we
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 1: are kind of, the last few months, we've kind of
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: slacked off in terms of reaching the goal of adding
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: 10 new Patreon members every month. So this month, we
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: certainly do not have 10. So we're only at the
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: beginning of the month, so we could make it. But July, August, September, yeah,
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: not good months for Patreon additions. So please consider helping
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 1: me get to that goal and becoming a Patreon supporter today, today, tomorrow,
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: whenever you're listening to the show out there, right?
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: I taught my first class for ARU today, for the
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: new semester of ARU today. on Western Civilization. I think
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: it went well. You too should sign up for ARU
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 1: and check out the courses. Those of you who are
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 1: graded students don't really have to pay any tuition, but
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: you can also audit if you want. Then you do
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 1: have to pay tuition. So check it out. The courses
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 1: have homework. You get feedback. They've got office hours and
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 1: live classes over Zoom. So Uh, you can go to einman.org
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: slash YBS and get the link to AIU and sign up.
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: Uncle Gata is teaching a three semester long class on objectivism.
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: You don't have to be at the live classes. You
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 1: can catch up by video later. Incredibly valuable. If you
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: really want to understand objectivism, that is the course you
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: need to sign up for. There's nothing like a live
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: teacher where you can ask questions and interact and engage.
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: That is really special and unique and a great opportunity.
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 1: Don't miss it. Don't miss it.
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 1: Alex Epstein, we've talked about him. Alex AI. Check it out.
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: Alex Epstein. That's upstate.com. Capitalism. Capitalism. Defenders of capitalism.com. Defenders
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: of capitalism.com. Michael Williams. This program. That I contribute to.
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 1: Check it out. Defenders of capitalism.com. Check out the website.
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 1: Sign up for the newsletter. If you're interested in having
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: somebody come out to your company. to your club, to whatever,
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 1: to defend capitalism, let us know. Uh, and, uh, yeah,
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 1: check out, check out our programs, check out what we do. I, I,
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: I think you'd, you can benefit enormously from it.
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 2: Um, all right.
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: What else do we want to do? We want to
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: do these super chats. The super chats are coming in slowly.
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 1: Your stickers are coming in slowly. I appreciate that. That's great. Um,
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 1: but we got targets to meet, right? So, so, um,
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: You know, we're probably not going to go three hours.
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: I'll adjust the target for just two hours. But we're
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 1: like $ 290 short of our target for the second hour.
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: You've got to help me make these targets. You've got
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 1: to make these show pay. And that's on you because
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 1: you guys need to pay for the shows. And you
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 1: can do that with a sticker. Mary Elaine just did
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 1: a $ 20 sticker. Thank you, Mary Elaine. I really, really,
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: really appreciate that. And who else did stickers? We got Tristan.
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: Thank you for the sticker. And we have got Stephen
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: and Tony and a lot of chat today. Who else
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 1: did a sticker? We've got Tristan did another sticker. So
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: thank you, Tristan, for the two stickers. Really appreciate that.
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: But you too can and should maybe do a sticker
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: given that you're listening, you're getting value. Again, express that
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 1: value monetarily. By trading with me. All right. Let's see.
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: Exploring Simon. Exploring Simon suddenly has become a big sticker contributor.
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Exploring Simon. You did a bunch yesterday and
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: $ 20 today. Really appreciate that. Alan, thank you. So, yes.
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: Keep the stickers coming. And questions. Questions. Beauty of questions
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: is super chats is you get to decide what I
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: will talk about. Perfect. All right. Shazbot. Shazbot says, you
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: said that AI is the best defense against AI. This
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 1: was predicted on Star Trek. In A Taste of Armageddon,
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 1: the leader of the alien planet used AI to fake
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 1: a message from the captain. Then Scotty used AI to
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: detect the fakery. Shazbot is an expert on all things
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 1: Star Trek. He's a techie. I think they called him techie.
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: What'd they call it? Trekkie?
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 2: Trekkie?
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 1: Anyway, I don't remember the episode, but I believe it.
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: And yes, I think science fiction, the problem is that
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 1: science fiction gets a lot right about AI and has
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: gotten a lot right about AI, but science fiction also
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 1: gets a lot wrong about AI. And that's why we
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 1: get all this doomerism because everybody thinks that it, it's
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: the Terminator or, or it's something like the Terminator. And, uh,
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: They have all these scary sci-fi scenarios. But yes, AI
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 1: is the solution to AI problems. We just need to
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 1: build them right and think through how we build them
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: and think through how to create tools to defend ourselves
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 1: against the ones that go rogue, the ones that might
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 1: try to do damage. It's all solvable. That's the thing.
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: It really is solvable. I've got a bunch of clips
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: that at some point I need to do a show
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 1: on AI. I've got clips from Bill Gates telling us
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 1: that the world is going to end any day now.
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 1: And then I've got clips from Jensen Wang, the CEO
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: of NVIDIA, saying, no, it ain't happening that way. So
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: I want to get all that together and do a
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 1: show where we talk about those clips and review it.
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 1: It's really interesting to watch these interviews. Both were interviewed
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 1: by the same guy. So it's a good thing. The
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 1: other thing I got clips of, which I didn't have
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 1: time to prepare for today, were of basically Tucker Carlson
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 1: telling us how, you know, the Nazis should have won
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 1: World War II and England entering the war was a
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 1: disaster for England and for everybody else and they had
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 1: no reason to enter the war. And then defending Russia
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 1: against Ukraine. Just all this stuff in a debate with
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 1: Mo Grease, a member of parliament, I don't know if
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 1: he still is, but he was a member of parliament
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 1: from the conservatives. So I'll do that as well. I'll
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 1: bring you some clips from Tucker Carlson making a fool
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 1: of himself. Some more. All right. Adam says, what are
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 1: the likely impacts of the coming U.S. midterms on U.S.
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 1: R & D, energy, and AI? How can likely adverse
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 1: effects be mitigated? that is self deportation of grandparents who
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: overstay to help two career parents with kids and homes.
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 1: You know, I, I, it's, it's going to be hard
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: to tell, uh, a lot of what the Democrats will
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 1: be focused on if they win is on, on just
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 1: trying to, trying to harass Trump, uh, impeach him and, and,
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 1: and generally not cooperate with him. Uh, hopefully that will
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 1: make it possible to maybe restrict the budget of, uh,
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: ICE and, uh, of, uh, the, uh, you know, the, uh,
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: Homeland Security, uh, more broadly, and that maybe will reduce deportations.
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 1: We will see, uh, if, if that is possible. Um,
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 1: you know, it, it will also, um, but it will
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 1: also create a lot of problems, right? I mean, the
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: Democrats will probably pass bills or try to pass bills
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 1: that regulate AI. I mean, not regulating AI is one
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: of the better things that Trump has done so far.
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: So the Democrats will try to undermine that. In terms
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 1: of R & D, energy, AI, I don't think they
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 1: will be able to do any damage to energy because, again,
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 1: I think they won't be able to. Trump can always
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 1: veto anything they pass. I don't think they'll do a
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 1: lot of damage to AI. But it will be a
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 1: battle with them constantly. And then in terms of R
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 1: & D, which Trump has cut significantly, I don't see
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 1: how they can reinstate it unless there's a part of
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 1: some big deal with Trump. But I'm not sure the
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 1: Democrats are motivated to do any big deals with Trump.
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 1: So I think we're heading towards two years of not
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 1: much happening in Washington, which I generally favor. other than
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 1: the two parties harassing one another, which again, I generally
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 1: favor maybe some government shutdowns, which again, I generally favor
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 1: and the government not doing much, which I generally favor.
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: So it's, it's going to be a mess. It's going
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 1: to be a complete and utter mess. So, um, I mean,
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 1: that's the best I can do in terms of predictions.
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 1: Nothing much will get done. That's good, but... And the
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 1: Democrats are going to win, right? The Democrats will win
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 1: the House and maybe win the Senate, but even if
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 1: they win the Senate, you need 60 votes to pass
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 1: stuff in the Senate, and Trump can always veto stuff. So, again,
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 1: they'll impeach Trump in the House, but the trial happens
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 1: in the Senate, consume a lot of time, a lot
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 1: of energy, but... I don't think they'll get the 60
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 1: votes in the Senate that they need in order, 66 votes,
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 1: I think. You need two-thirds in order to actually impeach him,
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 1: in order to actually get him out of office. Arthur,
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 1: monsters don't just happen. They are created like Frankenstein. Yes,
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 1: I mean, well, they're created. I think you have to
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 1: think of it as self-creation. They're created... They're self-created. They're
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: created by choices people, individuals make. Individuals make. Now, I'm
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 1: watching East of Eden, Steinbeck, the Steinbeck novel. So there's
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 1: a miniseries, basically, on Netflix of the East of Eden book.
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 1: Steinbeck was a real socialist and.
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 1: Bad guy in many respects, but his books can be
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 1: interesting and his characters are interesting. In East of Eden,
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 1: at least, I read the book decades ago and I
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 1: can't remember it, but in the miniseries, which is very
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 1: well done, very, very well done, so I recommend it
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 1: just for good television, there's a character of a woman
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 1: who it is suggested was sexually abused as a child
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 1: and learns to use sex to get her way I mean,
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 1: this woman, I mean, she becomes a real monster. She
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 1: becomes unbelievably evil. And the stuff she does is just horrific,
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 1: the people she kills. And so monsters might be, you know,
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 1: ultimately create themselves, but often it's spurred by something that
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 1: happens to them, that happens to them. And free will
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: is important. But in this case, yeah, I mean, East
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 1: of Eden is, if you have Netflix, it's definitely worth seeing.
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 1: It's very, very well produced, very well, very well made. Anomalous.
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 1: What are your thoughts on Robert Eggers movies? Example, The Witch,
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 1: The Lighthouse, The Northman. So of those, I've only seen
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 1: The Northman. It's the only movie I saw. I mean, look,
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 1: The Northman is a kind of naturalistic embrace of and
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 1: to some extent celebration of the barbarism of the Northmen.
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 1: There's nothing in that movie, there's nobody in the movie
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 1: that you can really root for. There's no real heroism.
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 1: It's driven by, it's a story of revenge in the
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 1: most barbaric form possible. It plays it out completely. it
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 1: presents the culture of the North man of the Vikings
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 1: as it was as brutal and as horrific as it was. Um,
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 1: the main character is one dimensional in, in, in, in
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 1: many respects, right? Um, it's one dimensional in the sense
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 1: that he's as a child, he sees his family butchered
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 1: and his whole life is dedicated to avenging them. And
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 1: he does. Um, It's impressive. It's dramatic. It's powerful. But,
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 1: you know, what's the meaning of it all? What's the message?
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 1: There's nothing inspiring about it. But it is impressive to watch.
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 1: So it's powerful. It's very powerful. I haven't seen The
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 1: Lighthouse and I haven't seen The Witch. And I haven't
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 1: seen his other movies. I don't know what other movies
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 1: he made. Let me look it up. I'm not up
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 1: to speed as much on more modern movies as I
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 1: am on older ones. Um, Nosferatu, it's, you know, uh, werewolf.
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 1: So he makes the kind of movies I don't tend
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 1: to go and see. I'm not interested in, I mean,
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 1: I saw Nosferatu, the silent version, um, which was quite
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 1: amazing in terms of, in terms of what was done,
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 1: but I, I'm not big on werewolf movies or, or
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 1: vampire movies, or things like that. The Lighthouse, two 1980s,
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 1: 90s lighthouse keepers slowly lose their sanity on a remote,
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 1: battered island. Yeah, I mean, these are not movies that
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 1: interest me, right? I'm not particularly interested in people going
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 1: crazy and in horror, horrible things happen to people. I
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 1: don't like horror movies generally. I mean, The Northmen.
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 1: It was more interesting to me because it, it was
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 1: a depiction of the Vikings, which interests me somewhat. Um,
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 1: and it was about human beings. It wasn't about monsters
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 1: and it was about, you know, I, I don't mind
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 1: stories of revenge.
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 1: Uh, so, um, yeah, I'm, I'm not, I'm not, um,
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 1: I'm not eager to go see any of those movies. No,
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 1: not what I, not what I want to get out
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 1: of a movie. not what I expect to get out
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 1: of a movie. Andrew says, serious question. How do you
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 1: explain the widespread passionate condemnation of Israel for indirectly killing
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 1: civilians versus the tepid obligatory criticism of Hamas? Islam has
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 1: targeted mass murder of innocent civilians. Well, I mean, I've
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 1: explained it like a million times now. Look, this is
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 1: the consequence of altruism. Israel is strong. Israel is successful.
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 1: Israel is rich, relatively speaking. The Palestinians are poor. They're miserable. Yeah,
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 1: what else can they do? You know, they don't have F-35s.
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 1: All they can do is kill women and children and
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 1: rape them and slaughter them and butcher them. How else
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 1: can they fight? They have nothing else. That's the argument, right?
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 1: And Israel uses their F-35s to kill people in large quantities,
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 1: and they're powerful and strong. They shouldn't do that. The
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 1: solution is for the powerful to sacrifice to the less powerful.
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 1: And power, by the way, signifies something. So if you're
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 1: powerful and successful and wealthy and all this stuff, it
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 1: means that you've been self-interested, which means that you are immoral,
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 1: that you've been evil. You've been, you know, you have
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 1: been the oppressor. So the Palestinians are the oppressed, Israel
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 1: is the oppressor, and therefore everything Israel does is bad,
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 1: everything the Palestinians do is okay, if not good, then
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 1: at least it's okay. So that is ultimately the explanation.
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 1: It's altruism, altruism, altruism, altruism, altruism. And add to that
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 1: a hatred of the West... which dominates the left in particular,
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 1: but is infecting now elements on the right as well.
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 1: A hatred of the West, Israel represents the West. What
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 1: did Ayn Rand call it? Bastion of the West in
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 1: a barbaric land. Well, being a bastion of the West
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 1: means it's bad, almost by definition, because the West is bad.
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 1: The West is colonial and exploitative. And was built on
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 1: slavery and was built on exploitation and all of this stuff. Well,
• 1:44:47
  Speaker 1: Israel has been built on exploiting Palestinians and stealing their
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 1: land and stealing this and stealing that. That is the narrative.
• 1:44:55
  Speaker 1: That's what you get from my intellectuals. That's what the
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 1: universities teach. So it shouldn't surprise anybody. that Israel gets
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 1: accused of stuff it isn't doing and the Palestinians get
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 1: a free right. You know, it's ideas, philosophy drives all
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 1: of this. All right, Andrew, to those freaking out at
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 1: the minute, at the minute chance of poor person dying
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 1: under capitalism. If no one was willing to help, how
• 1:45:30
  Speaker 1: many people are impoverished, struggling, and dead due to the
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 1: politics of statism? I mean, a lot of people are impoverished, struggling,
• 1:45:39
  Speaker 1: and maybe some are dead. They're certainly dead from diseases
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 1: that could have been cured if we had laissez-faire capitalism
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 1: and therefore had cures for a lot of stuff that
• 1:45:53
  Speaker 1: we don't have today. So yes, they don't freak out.
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 1: Of the evils of statism and what they have caused.
• 1:46:03
  Speaker 1: Because that's not what it's really about. It's not about
• 1:46:05
  Speaker 1: the poor people. They never care about the poor people.
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 1: It's about knocking down the success, knocking down the rich,
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 1: knocking down the successful. Because they're productive. Because that's what
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 1: they hate. It's hatred of the good, for being the good.
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 1: It's envy, as you pointed out the other day, Andrew.
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 1: And it's all within this context of oppressor-oppressed. Their success
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 1: is what dooms them. Their success is what makes it
• 1:46:32
  Speaker 1: clear that they're immoral. Mary Alene, is there anything in
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 1: the Constitution about non-objective law that would apply to climate
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 1: change lawsuits? No, I don't think so. I don't think so.
• 1:46:50
  Speaker 1: I mean, non-objective law is non-objective, and the court should
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 1: reject it because it's non-objective. That's their job, independent of
• 1:46:57
  Speaker 1: any provision in the Constitution. Robert, what is the American
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 1: dream and how does someone achieve the American dream? I mean,
• 1:47:08
  Speaker 1: the American dream really is to be successful as an individual.
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 1: You know, it's to be more successful than the previous generation,
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 1: more successful than your parents. But it's the idea of being,
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 1: you know, materially successful. Well off. Better off. So dying
• 1:47:28
  Speaker 1: with a lot more stuff than what you were born with.
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 1: Achieving more. Gaining more. And every generation has to redefine
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 1: the American dream because the standard keeps shifting. It used
• 1:47:44
  Speaker 1: to be having a home in the suburbs, a station wagon,
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 1: four kids and a dog, and being able to afford
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 1: all that comfortably. And today it's maybe, you know, I
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 1: don't know, the American dream is flying business class to
• 1:47:59
  Speaker 1: Europe on vacation. You know, it has to constantly adjust,
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 1: but it's basically achieving stuff as an individual, being better off,
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 1: progressing in life, constantly improving your situation in life. Marilyn
• 1:48:21
  Speaker 1: is questioning whether I'm answering the questions in dollar order.
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 1: I did all the $ 20 and $ 50 questions first. And
• 1:48:28
  Speaker 1: now I'm on the $ 5 to $ 10 questions. Those I
• 1:48:31
  Speaker 1: don't do in order. I just do the $ 5, $ 10 questions.
• 1:48:34
  Speaker 1: I do them all at the same time. Deeper with
• 1:48:40
  Speaker 1: Diego says, I'd give this to Robert, but I can't,
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 1: so I'll give it to you instead. Sorry, Robert. I'm
• 1:48:48
  Speaker 1: not sure why Robert was getting it. What did Robert do?
• 1:48:52
  Speaker 1: What made you deserve it, Robert? Robert says, I'd give
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 1: this to myself, but that'd be weird. So you get
• 1:48:59
  Speaker 1: it instead. Not sorry, Deeper with Diego.
• 1:49:03
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 1:49:05
  Speaker 1: Okay, sorry, no idea what was going on there. There's
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 1: some inside joke that I'm being excluded from. And then
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 1: Robert goes on to say, sorry, I know Megan Ribbons
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 1: and philosophy at work usually have a monopoly over the
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 1: cryptic super chats. I know, I mean, you shouldn't give
• 1:49:25
  Speaker 1: the monopoly over humor and over the tempted humor and
• 1:49:28
  Speaker 1: super chats. You should embrace it as well. Robert cooked dinner.
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 1: Who did he cook dinner for? Is he a good cook?
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 1: Was dinner good? Tristan says, view on the claim that
• 1:49:41
  Speaker 1: trauma victims remember differently later. Doesn't this create a moral
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 1: hazard in court cases potentially based on dismissing her behavior,
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 1: friendly messages immediately after? Well, I mean, again, this is...
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 1: Trauma victims, particularly sexual trauma, often after the fact... behave
• 1:50:07
  Speaker 1: in ways that you would think are inconsistent with rape.
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 1: They try to rationalize it. They try to explain it away.
• 1:50:15
  Speaker 1: They often act in friendly ways towards their abuser. Abuse
• 1:50:20
  Speaker 1: victims often stay with the abuser for a long time.
• 1:50:27
  Speaker 1: You know, psychologically, this is really, really difficult to, it's
• 1:50:33
  Speaker 1: really difficult for people to integrate abuse to understand it
• 1:50:41
  Speaker 1: and to process it properly. So again, this is why
• 1:50:46
  Speaker 1: you need an investigation. You need a court of law.
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 1: You need to be able to sift through this and
• 1:50:54
  Speaker 1: try to understand it. It's not easy, but it's a
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 1: known phenomenon that victims of sexual abuse often have often
• 1:51:05
  Speaker 1: right after the abuse, particularly right after the abuse, have
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 1: not processed it. And it takes them a few days
• 1:51:11
  Speaker 1: to process it. And only then do they realize what
• 1:51:15
  Speaker 1: happened and file charges. And sometimes it can take months.
• 1:51:19
  Speaker 1: They can stay in a relationship with somebody who's abusing them.
• 1:51:23
  Speaker 1: And let's be clear, none of that can justify the abuse. Now,
• 1:51:30
  Speaker 1: it makes it more difficult for To know what happened.
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 1: And I think it's almost impossible to know what happens
• 1:51:37
  Speaker 1: in situations where he said, she said, and where it
• 1:51:41
  Speaker 1: all happens in the bedroom and both people enter the
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 1: bedroom consensually. It's very difficult to tell what happens inside
• 1:51:48
  Speaker 1: a bedroom under those circumstances. But if there's other evidence,
• 1:51:56
  Speaker 1: if there are witnesses, that all becomes important. And again,
• 1:52:02
  Speaker 1: this is why somebody needs to investigate. And the only
• 1:52:06
  Speaker 1: entity that is in a position to investigate this is
• 1:52:10
  Speaker 1: the law. It's a prosecutor. But that doesn't mean you
• 1:52:25
  Speaker 1: can't come to a conclusion as a jury. Now, in
• 1:52:29
  Speaker 1: a civil case, which is what she's filing. She doesn't
• 1:52:32
  Speaker 1: have to prove guilty beyond any reasonable doubt. The standard
• 1:52:36
  Speaker 1: is much lower than that. So it'll be interesting to
• 1:52:40
  Speaker 1: see what happens. And if the interesting to see if
• 1:52:42
  Speaker 1: criminal charges are brought, remember the OJ trial, he was found, uh,
• 1:52:46
  Speaker 1: innocent criminally, and then was sued civil, uh, in a
• 1:52:51
  Speaker 1: civic lawsuit, civil lawsuit, and was found guilty, which I
• 1:52:55
  Speaker 1: think was the right verdict. He should have been found
• 1:52:57
  Speaker 1: guilty in the criminal. Um, But yeah, I mean, these
• 1:53:02
  Speaker 1: are tricky cases. There's no question these are tricky cases. And,
• 1:53:07
  Speaker 1: you know, friendly messages immediately afterwards, again, not unusual for
• 1:53:13
  Speaker 1: victims of sexual violence. So all of that needs to
• 1:53:24
  Speaker 1: be taken into account and evaluated. That's the job that
• 1:53:27
  Speaker 1: a trial does. And it's how you get objectivity is
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 1: you bring all the evidence forward and you debate it, right?
• 1:53:35
  Speaker 1: You get cross-examinations. And that's what you need to do. Whereas,
• 1:53:42
  Speaker 1: you know, to make calls about sexual violence on piecemeal
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 1: information is, I think, very wrong. All right. Jeffrey, great
• 1:53:59
  Speaker 1: show yesterday. Excited for the Fauda show on Sunday. Not
• 1:54:02
  Speaker 1: this week. Fauda is in two weeks. So yesterday, two
• 1:54:07
  Speaker 1: weeks will be Fauda. Next week is going to be on, um,
• 1:54:12
  Speaker 1: suicidal empathy, God's book. So, uh, suicide and empathy, uh, anonymous.
• 1:54:20
  Speaker 1: Do you think there's any hope for the Islamic world
• 1:54:23
  Speaker 1: to secularize itself? The growth of Islam makes me pessimistic. Um,
• 1:54:28
  Speaker 1: Any hope? Yeah, sure there's hope.
• 1:54:31
  Speaker 2: When?
• 1:54:31
  Speaker 1: I don't think anytime soon. I think in order for
• 1:54:35
  Speaker 1: Islam to secularize itself, the first step has to do,
• 1:54:40
  Speaker 1: has to be, sorry, the first step has to be
• 1:54:43
  Speaker 1: the West asserting the value of secularization. The West demanding secularization.
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 1: The West defeating its Islamist enemies. And I think that
• 1:54:57
  Speaker 1: will happen ultimately. But it ain't happening anytime soon. And
• 1:55:00
  Speaker 1: then Islam can secularize. It won't secularize as long as
• 1:55:04
  Speaker 1: the West is apologetic and as long as the West
• 1:55:07
  Speaker 1: itself rejects secularization. But yes, it's not so much to
• 1:55:17
  Speaker 1: go through Islam. To go through Islamism is worrisome. But remember,
• 1:55:23
  Speaker 1: they're very weak. They're very weak. The West could crush
• 1:55:26
  Speaker 1: them easily. if it chose to do so. All right, guys,
• 1:55:34
  Speaker 1: thank you to all the, uh, uh, super, uh, chatters.
• 1:55:39
  Speaker 1: I really appreciate the support. Uh, and, um, let's see. Uh,
• 1:55:45
  Speaker 1: don't forget to become Patreon supporters or to become, or
• 1:55:48
  Speaker 1: you could do the same thing on PayPal, but to
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 1: become monthly supporters of the show. I very much appreciate that. Uh,
• 1:55:55
  Speaker 1: I've got a goal for the number of people added and,
• 1:55:59
  Speaker 1: You guys haven't been adding. You've got to add. Subscribers
• 1:56:02
  Speaker 1: are up. And we've got to get the financial support
• 1:56:06
  Speaker 1: up as well in terms of monthly support. So please
• 1:56:08
  Speaker 1: do that. Thanks again to all the Super Chatters. We'll
• 1:56:11
  Speaker 1: be back tomorrow, probably at more normal time, probably at
• 1:56:17
  Speaker 1: 3 p.m. East Coast time tomorrow. Mondays will probably be
• 1:56:20
  Speaker 1: later because I teach on Monday. Rest of the week
• 1:56:23
  Speaker 1: will probably stick to 3 p.m., at least for now.
• 1:56:29
  Speaker 1: All right, everybody. Oh, no, tomorrow is late. Tomorrow I
• 1:56:33
  Speaker 1: have a board meeting. So wait a minute, wait a minute,
• 1:56:35
  Speaker 1: wait a minute. Tomorrow will be another late show. What
• 1:56:42
  Speaker 1: day is tomorrow? Yes, tomorrow will actually be 7 p.m.
• 1:56:49
  Speaker 1: East Coast time. So tomorrow's show, 7 p.m. East Coast time.
• 1:56:52
  Speaker 1: I've got a board meeting until 5.30. So 7 p.m.
• 1:56:55
  Speaker 1: East Coast time tomorrow. See you guys. Have a great
• 1:56:59
  Speaker 1: rest of your Monday. Bye, everybody.