Latest / Yaron Brook Show / Live from Porto: 𝙋𝙝𝙞𝙡𝙤𝙨𝙤𝙥𝙝𝙮—𝘼𝙨 𝙖 𝙒𝙚𝙖𝙥𝙤𝙣 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙎𝙪𝙘𝙘𝙚𝙨𝙨 w/Tim Vieira, Mário Amorim Lopes, Yaron Brook

Transcript

Live from Porto: 𝙋𝙝𝙞𝙡𝙤𝙨𝙤𝙥𝙝𝙮—𝘼𝙨 𝙖 𝙒𝙚𝙖𝙥𝙤𝙣 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙎𝙪𝙘𝙘𝙚𝙨𝙨 w/Tim Vieira, Mário Amorim Lopes, Yaron Brook · Yaron Brook Show

• 3:48
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for being here today. It means
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: a lot for us. Basically, i'm media ol the I'm
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: part of the Objectivism Portunal Group. In conjunction with the
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: Atlas Campus, we are organizing these conferences, this one in
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: Porto today and the one in Lisbon on Thursday. The
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: sponsor of this event is the iron Rand Institute. For
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: those of you who don't know, iron Rand was a
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: novelist and a philosopher, and she was the author of
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: The fountain Head and Atlas Shrugged, the masterpiece that was
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: the first time in writing that she stated all the
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: ideas about objectivism. And the idea for this conference itself
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: here at Porto is to distress philosophy as a weapon
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: for success. We want to answer the question how can
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: the principled men achieve personal and professional success whilst being happy?
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: And for that we're going to count with the help
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: of Rann Brooke, chairman of the iron Ran Institute, is
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: the author of Equalism, Fair, a Free Market Revolution and
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: The Pursuit of In Pursuit of Wealth, and he hosts
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: a podcast himself, You Are and Brout Show, So if
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: you like what you hear today, you can listen to
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: his show more often, so thank you very much for
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: being here. Then we have Team Vieta. Thank you so
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: much as well for being here. He's a highly successful businessman.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: Now he's very invested in focused on the Brave Generation
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: Academy with the goal of this of this project is
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: to educate children all around the glow. I think that's amazing.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: So thank you very much for being here. Thanks for
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: your time. Oh yeah, for sure, Yeah.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: The longest amen.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: And then we have Mariam Milus Marium loves you all
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: know him as well, for sure, is a member of
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: the Parliament for any Evil Liberal, has a pH d
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: and economics apply to healthcare. He has had companies or
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: maybe has companies still. And he has his own podcast
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: as well called the Ventans, so you can check it
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: out if you if you subscribe.
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: Maybe future presidential candidate. Yeah, we want the announcement.
• 6:22
  Speaker 4: I thought we were friends.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: And to moderate this conference, we have Madi Infancisels. She
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: has a master's in law. She is the vice president
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: of said JAVA and she's a parliament assistant at European Parliament.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: So thank you very much for being here with us
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: as well.
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: And the four is yours.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: Maria.
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: I have mine, so.
• 6:51
  Speaker 5: Let's get it started. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to
• 6:56
  Speaker 5: our debate philosophy as a weapon for success. It's a
• 7:00
  Speaker 5: pleasure to have you all here this afternoon for what
• 7:03
  Speaker 5: I believe will be a very inspiring and interesting conversation
• 7:07
  Speaker 5: about how philosophy can shape our views on the world
• 7:12
  Speaker 5: and our lives. Our speakers come from very different and
• 7:16
  Speaker 5: interesting backgrounds from business, politics, and philosophy, which I'm sure
• 7:22
  Speaker 5: will make this exchange even more engaging for everyone. And
• 7:26
  Speaker 5: with that, I would like to start with Jaron, and
• 7:30
  Speaker 5: let's start with the basics I believe. So what is
• 7:34
  Speaker 5: philosophy and why should anyone care about it for their lives?
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: So philosophy is really the study is in the volume
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: seems high. Philosophy is the is the fundamental, the study
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: of the fundamental aspects of life. It studies questions like,
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: you know, what is reality? How do we know what
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: reality is? And what are we? What is mankind? What
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: kind of an animal are we? And what is our
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: purpose in life? What should be our purpose in life?
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: So it's descriptive in its metaphysics and epistemology about what
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: is out there, how we know? And then it's prescriptive
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: in a sense of, well, what kind of life should
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: you lead, what kind of values, and what kind of
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: virtues should you engage in? And of course that leads
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: to kind of political philosophy, which then tells us, well,
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: what kind of political systems are good, what kind of
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: political systems are bad, what's good, what's evil in terms
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: of politics, not just in terms of human behavior. And
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: it even addresses kind of the human need for esthetics,
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: for arts. And there's a whole field in philosophy that
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: deals with aesthetics, which we probably won't talk about today,
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: And it's important because at the end of the day,
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: it shapes everything. Even people who've never read philosophy and
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: don't know anything about philosophy and would deny they've be
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: exposed to any philosophy are guided by a philosophy implicitly.
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: They absorb it from their parents, from their teachers, from
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: their professors. They if you ask them what is reality,
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: they have an answer. They might have never thought about it,
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: they've just absorbed it. If you ask them, how do
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: you know, they've got an answer. Again, they might not
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: have thought about it, but they've got an answer because
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: they've absorbed it. From the culture around them, and suddenly
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: we know everybody out there has opinions about politics, and
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: how many of them really thought it through and really
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: established their foundations and thought about what are their foundations
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: in political philosophy and why they hold those foundations. And
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: this is the kind of system of government. And therefore,
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: you know, we should have socialized health care, we should
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: have private health care. But they have reasons. Most people
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: don't have reasons because they've never thought about it. So
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: philosophy is that system of thought behind it all the
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: shapes every every aspect of human behavior. Everything that we
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: do is ultimately shape by a philosophy. And one of
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: the things that I think is really important in life,
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: and I think that this, hopefully this panel will help,
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: is the more we make philosophy explicit, the more we
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: identify a philosophical premise, the more it can become a
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: tool for us to live a better life. The more
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: we know about ourselves, we know about why we do
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: and why we think what we think, and the more
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: we can then shape our lives to be consistent with
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: the fundamental ideas that we have. The more to mishmash
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: and just in the background, you know, the more, we're
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: being pulled by forces that we are not in control of.
• 10:44
  Speaker 5: Before moving on to team, I would like to just
• 10:48
  Speaker 5: make a little follow up question based on what you
• 10:51
  Speaker 5: just told us. Would you say that philosophy can work
• 10:54
  Speaker 5: like as a practical guide to our lives and moving
• 10:58
  Speaker 5: through the world.
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: I mean, philosophy should, and I think philosophers who present
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: their philosophy intended to be a practical guide for people
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: to live by. Even philosophies that I think are bad,
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: their intention is for people to take them seriously and
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: to live or die if they're really bad philosophies based
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: on them, Philosophy is a practical guide to living in
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: a good Philosophy is a practical guide to successful living.
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: It's a practical guide to happiness, to prosperity, to flourishing
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: as a human being. That's the purpose of philosophy to
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: teach us. Look, living is hard, it's complicated. There's a
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: lot of going on, right, and most of us are
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: focused on making a living, raising our kids. There's so
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: much going on, and what philosophy and learning basic philosophy
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: gives us a tools principles by which we can live
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: shortcuts so we can achieve happiness and flourishing without having
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: to invent our own lastophy, ourselves, or I think every
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: little aspect through. That is the job of philosopher's and intellectuals.
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: It's to convey these ideas and the hobbits use the
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: ideas in our daily lives.
• 12:12
  Speaker 5: Thank you, Thank you so much so moving on to Tim, Tim,
• 12:16
  Speaker 5: you have often said that success is about trying, failing
• 12:21
  Speaker 5: and then trying again. And with that said, I would
• 12:25
  Speaker 5: like to ask you, for you personally, what does success means?
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's way. It's difficult because I got presented
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: as a successful businessman and I can tell you I've
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: had many more in successes, many more failures than I
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: have successes. But without those successes or failures, there would
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: be very few successes. Because you need this experience. You
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: need to go through all the failures. You need to
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: learn how to get back up, how to rebuild a team,
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: how to take responsibility and say yeah, my fault, move on,
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: let's go. So I think you know in the way,
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: our success in the end is us working on things
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: that give us purpose with people we love or enjoy
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: or can tolerate.
• 13:11
  Speaker 6: And if you force to work with people, you don't
• 13:14
  Speaker 6: like on projects that you don't like, well, that's very unsuccessful,
• 13:17
  Speaker 6: even if you're making a lot of money, because.
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: In the end, I've understood that successful, so it doesn't
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: come with money. There's a lot of people making money
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: that's super unsuccessful, not that happy. And you know, like
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: everything I do in life, I look at it almost
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: and keep it simple. So if you're doing things and
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: it's making you happy and you're in a good space
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: working with people you really enjoy, I think that's that's
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: what makes me happiest.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: So I get to wake up every day, I don't
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: have a day's set and don't exactly know what's going
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: to happen. I get to go to bed super late
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: and wake up super early because I've got this purpose
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: and I'm working with people that I believe in. So
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: that's success for me.
• 14:02
  Speaker 5: That's a very good answer, actually, and it makes life
• 14:06
  Speaker 5: a lot easier while working for sure. So still on
• 14:10
  Speaker 5: this success topic, I would like to move on to Mariu,
• 14:14
  Speaker 5: and I would like to ask if you think that
• 14:16
  Speaker 5: success can be collective like shared by a company or
• 14:21
  Speaker 5: a nation, or if success always has to be an
• 14:24
  Speaker 5: individual achievement.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: Okay, So.
• 14:29
  Speaker 4: First of all, let me start with but the bottom
• 14:32
  Speaker 4: line of my message, which is that philosophy is not
• 14:36
  Speaker 4: a means to an end, be it achieving personal success,
• 14:40
  Speaker 4: professional success, whatever. It is an end in itself, so
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: it serves its own purpose. Having said this, philosophy is
• 14:49
  Speaker 4: also an important tool. And by the way, I'm no philosopher.
• 14:52
  Speaker 4: I'm just a layman that uses philosophy to improve his
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: life and the way I see life. I think that
• 15:00
  Speaker 4: is the most important point. And philosophy, therefore, having said
• 15:07
  Speaker 4: that it isn't in itself, can be a very useful
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: tool for understanding the world and thinking about the world.
• 15:15
  Speaker 4: Let me give you an example. So, picking up on
• 15:17
  Speaker 4: what Yarns said, which I completely agreed, we are influenced
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: by philosophers all the time, not only philosophers. It was
• 15:26
  Speaker 4: Canes that used to say that everybody is influenced by
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: defunct economists, whether you like it or not, whether you
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: agree to it or not, we are influenced by that.
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: The same with philosophy. With philosophy, so if that is
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: the case, we need to decide whether we want to
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: do it consciously or unconsciously, because either way we'll get
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: influenced by it, so it's better we know the tools,
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: We know the tools of the trade, and we know
• 15:51
  Speaker 4: the most basics, so that help us with our own life.
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: And let me give you one good example of how
• 15:59
  Speaker 4: philosophy can help us with ethical issues and with moral dilemmas.
• 16:04
  Speaker 4: Most of us will have an opinion on what I
• 16:07
  Speaker 4: have to show you in a quick sect just waiting
• 16:10
  Speaker 4: for the display turn on. So everybody will have a hunch,
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: will have an instinct on how it would behave if
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: confronted with what I'll be showing you next. But the
• 16:23
  Speaker 4: real question is can you do it from a rational standpoint?
• 16:28
  Speaker 4: Can you decide? Knowing everything that is at stake and
• 16:32
  Speaker 4: the different ethical perspectives you can take. So well, it's
• 16:38
  Speaker 4: sparring up. But while it's powering up, I can explain
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: in words the moral dilemmas. So it's basically some of
• 16:45
  Speaker 4: you haveverted in the past. It's called the trolley dilemma.
• 16:49
  Speaker 4: It's basically a railway. Right, you have a railway and
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: then you have a bridge on top on the railway.
• 16:56
  Speaker 4: Still turning on on the railway, you see a couple
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: of people that is tied to the railway. Right, we
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: don't know who those are. We don't know if they're innocent,
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: if they're guilty of anything. See there you go. So
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: there's the bridge, there's the railway, and then there's some
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: people there right, they're tied to the railway and there's
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: a train incoming, and there's nothing you can do. I mean,
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: if the train just steps over them, they will be
• 17:23
  Speaker 4: of course, be that, that's for sure. Now on top
• 17:25
  Speaker 4: of the bridge, there's a very fat guy and there
• 17:28
  Speaker 4: are some wonders there and they are discussing between each
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: other what they should do about it, whether they should
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: throw the fat guy off the bridge. And in this
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: moral dilemma he can stop the train. He dies, but
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: the others survive, while others are saying, no, I mean,
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: he's an innocent guy, why should we do that, While
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: the others are saying, well, we can save more people.
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: Now you may think this is kind of an abstract
• 17:59
  Speaker 4: academic example.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: It is not.
• 18:01
  Speaker 4: These are the kind of decisions that one needs to
• 18:04
  Speaker 4: do on well, in the particular case of physicians, for instance,
• 18:08
  Speaker 4: that they need to make on a daily basis. Now,
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: if I ask the audience what your decision would be,
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: usually it's split half and half. Some would say well,
• 18:18
  Speaker 4: we could save more people. We call that utilitarianism. I'll
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: discuss that in detail. You'd save more people, while others say, well,
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: the ends the means. Sorry, the ends do not justify
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: the means. So even if we save more people, I
• 18:35
  Speaker 4: don't want to sacrifice an innocent We could call that
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: a gontological approach, a can'tyon approach. Either way, you will
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: have this answer instinctively, right, you haven't thought about it,
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: but you'll take one of these sides.
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: That's it.
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: If you have to decide, you'll take one of these sides. Now,
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: it's interesting because when I asked this, and I did
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: ask this in the past to an audience of physicians
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: or people working in the healthcare sector, way more people
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: would go for the utilitarian ethical decision than the deontological.
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: And there's a good reason for that, because health professionals
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: have a strong pressure to save as many people as possible, right,
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: that's their duty. They need to do that, So they
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: are lean towards doing that, saving as many people as possible,
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: while others will say or will take a different approach.
• 19:29
  Speaker 4: In my particular case, I'll definitely take a deontological approach.
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: I don't think the ends justify all means. Actually, this
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: idea of it's called consequentialism is the path to totalitarianism.
• 19:43
  Speaker 4: So there's there's some philosophical roots to to the idea
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: of an oppressive state that will liberate us all. And
• 19:51
  Speaker 4: therefore some eggs need to be broken, like leninset. There's
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: a philosophical route in this, in this thought, and so
• 20:01
  Speaker 4: these things actually happened to affect us in our daily decisions.
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: And so there's no right or wrong to this moral dilemma.
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: There's no right answer. Those who say that I would
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: rather say if more people they are not wrong, and
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: those who'd say that, well, let's have it as it
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: is and let's not sacrifice the guy, and then more
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: people will eventually die. Now, where this dilemma gets trickier
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: is when you start changing it. And for those who say, well,
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: I wouldn't sacrifice the fat guy on the bridge, and
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: then you change the dilemma a bit and say the following,
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: what if instead of those individuals that we don't know
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: who they are, it was there your family. Most of
• 20:45
  Speaker 4: you would probably change your answer. And that's one of
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: the reasons why we're not good judges. When we're judging
• 20:51
  Speaker 4: for our own cause. That's pre precisely because of that,
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: because we wouldn't be impartial, it would be too much
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: at stake. We wouldn't sacrifice our face family. Well I
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: wouldn't for sure, And so again this has a big
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: impact on us. So this is just a small illustration
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: of our philosophy can have a big impact on how
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: we reason about the problems we face in our life
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: and the principles we want to follow. And for someone
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: like me, with as most of you probably know, very
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: liberal and staunch liberal, I like my positions of principle
• 21:28
  Speaker 4: to be grounded in something or in values that are
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: really important to me. And therefore that's why I take
• 21:37
  Speaker 4: this theontological approach or can't an approach, because it derives
• 21:41
  Speaker 4: from the moral imperative of Manuel Kant that the means
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: they're not at the end does not justify all the means.
• 21:49
  Speaker 4: And you wouldn't do andto others what you wouldn't want
• 21:53
  Speaker 4: them to do to yourself, so you wouldn't sacrifice an
• 21:57
  Speaker 4: innocent And that somehow gives me some and just to
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: wrap up that, somehow gives me some peace of mind
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: in the sense that I don't know if the answer
• 22:07
  Speaker 4: is right over or wrong. But I'm okay with what
• 22:11
  Speaker 4: the way I decided. So I haven't answered exactly our
• 22:15
  Speaker 4: philosophy helps with success and how to measure success, but
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: I think this was the one of the angles I
• 22:21
  Speaker 4: wanted to share.
• 22:23
  Speaker 5: Having heard Mario, I would like to make a little
• 22:26
  Speaker 5: follow up question to Jaron, knowing your views on can
• 22:31
  Speaker 5: success be collective or is it necessarily individual?
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: Which he didn't answer.
• 22:39
  Speaker 4: I'll get back to it later.
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I forgot. Can I comment on what he did
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: say though before we get to yes, of course, because
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: I think I mean has an interesting perspective on the
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: trolley question. This is a standard issue that is taught
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: in all ethics classes, you know, a variety of different
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: ways it's presented. I've never seen this caricature.
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: It's from the economists.
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: Okay, but that that that that's kind of a you know,
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: pushing the fat guy and he's fat, you know, so
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: I don't know if that weighs into the decision bit.
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: Well, actually, sir, to interrupt you, but some physicians said, well,
• 23:19
  Speaker 4: that guy is very likely to live, not as long
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: as others I thought of it, you know, healthy people.
• 23:26
  Speaker 4: So eventually, yeah, that bad. So yeah, I had someone
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: saying that.
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: So we very much viewed this as the kind of
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: as a as a if you will, a marginal issue
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: in ethics, so very different than then, I say what
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: you usually talked in ethics classes. She she she thought
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: this was the ethics of emergencies, right, that that sometimes
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: you're faced with these really you know, impossible dilemmas and yeah,
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: there's no real good answer, there's no real right answer.
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: And what she argued is is that unfortunately, this is
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: what almost all of ethics in our modern time boils
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: down to. It's about emergencies. And her argument is, no,
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: ethics is about every single decision, important decision you make
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: in your daily life. It's how do I decide what
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: career to pursue. Do I listen to my mother and
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: do something I hate because it pleases her, or do
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: I do what I'm passionate about. That's an ethical decision.
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: Am I placing the interest? Are my mother a head
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: of mine? Or am I placing my interest first?
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: You know?
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: So you know, every single day we engage in ethical decisions.
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: Every time we decide I'm gonna really think about this
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: problem or am I going to go buy my emotions. Right,
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: those are two different philosophical schools, emotionalism versus reason. So
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: ethics is something that I think guides every one of
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: our decisions, and yes it you know, you're sometimes faced
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: in an emergency room in the hospital with these impossible situations.
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: Do I treat these people? Do I treat those people?
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: How do I decide? And for doctors maybe that's a reality.
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: But for most of us, we're never going to be
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: in a trolley. Most of us, though, have to make
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: decisions every single day about how to use our mind,
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: how to use our life, how to use our time,
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: how to make decisions, And a good, useful ethical system
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: is one that gives us guidance on how to make
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: those decisions in a way that leads to success and happiness. Now,
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: the question is the question was about individual versus collective
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: happiness success. So there's a sense in which you know,
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: only individuals act in the world. You know groups act,
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: but groups are just collections of individuals. But you can
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: attribute the success of a group of people to the group. Certainly,
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: companies can be successful, and you can also say that
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: countries are successful.
• 25:55
  Speaker 4: But you have to then break it down.
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: What makes a country successful the success of its individual people.
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: I mean, this is part of the problem with authoritarians, right,
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: they want the country to be successful somehow they imagine
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: it can be successful, while no, none of the individuals
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: are successful. They're all all the same. They're all, you know,
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: mindless drones doing you know, like the in the kind
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: of communist caricature. So a group success is dependent on
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: individual success. But certainly I mean sports teams, right, I mean,
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: I don't know any football teams in Portugal, I'm sorry,
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: but like Real Madrid, Real Madrid is successful. It's a team. Now,
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: it can only be successful to the extent individuals is
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: successful and that they work together as a team. But
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: you can't not say that the group is successful. So yes,
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: groups can be successful.
• 26:48
  Speaker 5: Okay, that's very interesting. Moving on to team and still
• 26:55
  Speaker 5: on this success topic, but connecting it to happiness. The
• 27:01
  Speaker 5: question is how can we connect happiness to success? And
• 27:07
  Speaker 5: is it possible that you are a very successful person
• 27:10
  Speaker 5: and that you can still be unhappy even though you
• 27:14
  Speaker 5: have reached all your goals.
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: I think, you know. I think happiness is actually a
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: lot more simple than we think, and it's not as
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: complex as we all think. And not being a philosopher.
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: I'll try to be very simple thinking, and I've just
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: learned that, you know, giving gratitude traveling and seeing what
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: could be if I wasn't if I didn't have the
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: opportunities I did have, makes me super happy. Having a
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: cause makes me super happy, even if I'm losing, you know,
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: but I've got the cause, so I feel like I'm
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: doing my part, making the right decision when it's maybe
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: not the easy decision or the expected decision or the
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: allowed decision. You know. I looked at you know, you
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: look at Nelson Mandela. Was he happy in jail? Probably
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: not happy in jail per se physically, but mentally spiritually,
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: he was probably very happy because he was fighting for
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: a vote that he believed in, and he had a cause,
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: you know. So I'll look at that and I'll say,
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: if we think of it in that way, I'd rather
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: have those causes and have a war to fight than
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: that I believe in. Then being comfortable living a long
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: life and not having achieved anything or fought for anything.
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: You don't become an example, you don't become a mentor,
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: you don't become anything, you know, And I think that's
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: a lot sadder than.
• 28:47
  Speaker 5: You know.
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: Being grateful for what you've got because you've got it
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: doesn't mean it's easy. It actually it's actually not nice
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: if it's easy. I've actually felt that I've the wars
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: I've had and the battles that I've fought that have
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: made me the strongest.
• 29:01
  Speaker 7: You know.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: I always tell my kids, you know, what doesn't kill
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: you make you stronger, and I really believe that, you know,
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: and then it also works on everything. It gives you
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: more faith and more hope, you know, those things that
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: if you believe in God, and you don't believe in God,
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: but if you've got them, it does give you a
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: lot of strength. And this I might have been out
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: totally off the philosophers and all that, but it is
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: what it is for me, you know, and that's it.
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: So I would say, is identifying the little things, being
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: grateful for little things, and fighting something that is worth
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: fighting for that makes you be happy.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 29:36
  Speaker 5: This view that you just shared with us is actually
• 29:39
  Speaker 5: very important because soon we will also move on to
• 29:42
  Speaker 5: the values and the role of religion that I believe
• 29:46
  Speaker 5: is actually very connected to what you have shared. But
• 29:50
  Speaker 5: before that, I would like to ask Mario, if our
• 29:55
  Speaker 5: happiness depends on the choices we make, does that mean
• 29:58
  Speaker 5: that we should all be doing similar choices and maybe
• 30:03
  Speaker 5: aiming for similar goals.
• 30:06
  Speaker 4: Well, before I try answering that, let me just go
• 30:09
  Speaker 4: back to your question which I didn't answer about prolific
• 30:13
  Speaker 4: success is individual or collective, because there is a much
• 30:18
  Speaker 4: broader question beyond that, which is whether it's the eternal
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: dilemmit of agency and structure. It's more sociological question than
• 30:26
  Speaker 4: a philosophical question, which is basically what matters the most
• 30:30
  Speaker 4: is the agency of the individuals or is it the
• 30:33
  Speaker 4: structure in this case the structure of society that somehow
• 30:38
  Speaker 4: will limit the potential of the benefit of the individual,
• 30:41
  Speaker 4: or the other way around, will boost the potential of
• 30:43
  Speaker 4: the individual. And this has strong implications also for political philosophy.
• 30:49
  Speaker 4: When we think about one of the intellectual fathers of
• 30:56
  Speaker 4: the election of the left, Jean Jacques Cusso, used to
• 30:59
  Speaker 4: say that individuals by nature were good beings. However, society
• 31:06
  Speaker 4: would degrade us right, so it was structure affecting the individuals.
• 31:11
  Speaker 4: Thomas Hobbes, on the other hand, used to say that
• 31:13
  Speaker 4: we are savages if we are left to our natural
• 31:16
  Speaker 4: state where savages, and therefore we need a strong state
• 31:21
  Speaker 4: called the Leviata. You called it the Levanta, so that
• 31:24
  Speaker 4: it could tame us, it could somehow limit our state
• 31:29
  Speaker 4: of savage. And so this has important implications for our
• 31:34
  Speaker 4: day to day decisions and also for a collective decisions.
• 31:37
  Speaker 4: So it's hard to say, I mean, it's of course
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: pragmatic answer. It's of course a mix of things. You
• 31:44
  Speaker 4: by yourself, your agency is not enough to accomplish everything
• 31:49
  Speaker 4: you'd like. Think about Einstein. If Einstein were born not
• 31:53
  Speaker 4: in Switzerland, and we're born somewhere in Africa, right in
• 31:59
  Speaker 4: Subsarean Africa, which doesn't have the resources, they don't even
• 32:02
  Speaker 4: have the enough food, you'll probably be be dead. When
• 32:06
  Speaker 4: he was like ten or fifteen. He never become the Einstein,
• 32:09
  Speaker 4: the physician, the physics we know, right, because he wouldn't
• 32:13
  Speaker 4: have the opportunities he had when he moved to the US. So,
• 32:17
  Speaker 4: of course structure matters. We also benefit from the interactions
• 32:22
  Speaker 4: we have to society. Now, the important point being we
• 32:26
  Speaker 4: want those interactions to be forced or voluntary. Now a libertarian,
• 32:31
  Speaker 4: a liberal would say, of course voluntary. We are individuals,
• 32:35
  Speaker 4: but we're not hermits. We don't live isolated from society.
• 32:39
  Speaker 4: We like society. We like to cooperate with each other.
• 32:42
  Speaker 4: What we don't like is the state, the state telling
• 32:45
  Speaker 4: us with whom we should cooperate on what we should do. So,
• 32:48
  Speaker 4: I mean bottom line answer would be, it's a mix
• 32:51
  Speaker 4: of both, right. I mean, there's a lot that depends
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: on your effort, on what you do on you know,
• 32:58
  Speaker 4: all the trouble, all the effort you put into it.
• 33:01
  Speaker 4: But then there are other factors that you don't control
• 33:05
  Speaker 4: that are pretty much related to the to the environment,
• 33:08
  Speaker 4: to the context you're in, to the society you live.
• 33:11
  Speaker 4: So I'd say it's a mix of both. And in
• 33:14
  Speaker 4: the meanwhile, I completely forgot the new questions.
• 33:17
  Speaker 5: You ask, if happiness depends on our choices, should we
• 33:23
  Speaker 5: all be aiming for the same the same goals, making
• 33:27
  Speaker 5: the same choices, same path.
• 33:30
  Speaker 4: I mean, I'd call myself a hedonist. So I mean,
• 33:32
  Speaker 4: do whatever works to make you happy, that's it, right,
• 33:36
  Speaker 4: I mean, each one of us has to find its recipe.
• 33:39
  Speaker 4: There's no universal recipe for happiness. For some people it's
• 33:42
  Speaker 4: going to be work. Their aurs is off. Sorry for
• 33:45
  Speaker 4: the language. I mean work a lot achieve a lot
• 33:48
  Speaker 4: in terms of, you know, professionally, build a big successful company,
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: make a lot of money. That's probably what will make
• 33:55
  Speaker 4: them happy for that. For others will be raise a family,
• 33:59
  Speaker 4: see your kids grow, get old with them, or travel
• 34:02
  Speaker 4: a lot. I mean, each one of us, I would say,
• 34:05
  Speaker 4: needs to find their own way, their own path to happiness.
• 34:10
  Speaker 4: But the way we think about it, I think it
• 34:12
  Speaker 4: helps finding that way if we don't put too much
• 34:15
  Speaker 4: pressure on it, if we just accept it as it
• 34:18
  Speaker 4: is that we need to, you know, walk the path,
• 34:20
  Speaker 4: find our way, and eventually will uncover what truly makes
• 34:24
  Speaker 4: us happy. I think it will be much easier to
• 34:28
  Speaker 4: take that path than if we just try to doing
• 34:31
  Speaker 4: it blindfolded, without knowing where we want to go.
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: But I do think by making decisions different to other people,
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: we get happier.
• 34:43
  Speaker 4: Different different we don't follow individuals.
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: I think you do many times doing the something different
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: to others, you actually become happier, you know. And the
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: other thing is, I do think you have more fun
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: when you're with others, when I sometimes think you have
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: a lot more fun when you were with others, Like
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: I've never you know, I've had a lot of fun
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: with others.
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so the fun and happiness is not the same.
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: A lot of fun that makes you very unhappy, but in.
• 35:13
  Speaker 7: The wake up the next morning, but in the but
• 35:16
  Speaker 7: in the end it produces joy, you know, like my daughter,
• 35:19
  Speaker 7: my son, it's okay, And I learned that joy would
• 35:23
  Speaker 7: have never come into my life.
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: I hope you're listening, but you know, i'd say everybody
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: has their own path, there's no question, and everybody must
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: choose their own way. But there are certain principles that
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: lead you to happiness and certain principles that lead you
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: to unhappiness. I mean, there's a whole lot of unhappy
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: people in the world, and we have to have an
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: answer to why there's so many unhappy people. Not you know,
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: they've they've made choices, they followed paths that don't lead anywhere.
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: So there's a mythodology to happiness. There is a there
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: was a framework that leads to happiness, even if the
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: specific individual choices that one makes are going to be different.
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: Because we're gonna do different careers and marry different people, hopefully,
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: and and you know, we like different cause and we
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: like different arts, and we like different things. They all
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: have to be life affirming values. We can choose different values,
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: but they all have to have one thing in common.
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: If you choose life destroying values, which unfortunately many people
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: do their life destroying and you're not gonna be happy
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: you can, you're gonna you're gonna commit spiritual suicide.
• 36:28
  Speaker 4: That's a very objectivist point of view.
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: I strive towards that.
• 36:33
  Speaker 4: Yes, moving on to.
• 36:36
  Speaker 5: A topic that is, like I said before, connected to religion.
• 36:40
  Speaker 5: If you don't mind, I would switch up a bit
• 36:43
  Speaker 5: the order of the questions because I know the three
• 36:46
  Speaker 5: of you have a very different view on this. So
• 36:50
  Speaker 5: I would like to start with Tim. You showed us
• 36:55
  Speaker 5: with your prior answers that you are very much guided
• 37:00
  Speaker 5: and connected to faith, and so I would like to
• 37:05
  Speaker 5: ask you how does Christian Christian principles shape our happiness,
• 37:13
  Speaker 5: our sense of happiness?
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: I think you know Christian values keep you maybe doing
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: the right choices in many ways, because you know, like
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: for me, being God fearing helps me. I'm not embarrassed
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: to say it. I've been in dark positions and maybe
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: my faith was the light that kept me going and
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: maybe keep me believing that it will come out of that.
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: You understand and I've got friends and people I know
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: that don't have that faith. And when it's dark, it's dark,
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: and it can't even get dark and stay dark for
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: a very long time. I think hope comes from faith
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: and if you don't have hope, and when you know,
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: the saddest place that I've seen in the world has
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: been East Vancouver. When I walked through the Roads of
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: eas vancous, I was shocked because it was like there
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: was no hope. You know, the guards that were stuck
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: on drugs and all that on the side of the road.
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: There was no hope. And I go to Africa and
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: you know, Congos and wherever I go, and there's still hope.
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: There's always hope, and they're happier because there's hope. So
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: for me, it's a simple thing. I don't have to
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: be a philosopher to understand that it helps me. So
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: maybe you know, I'm being selfish saying that it works
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: for me. That's the way I'll think about it. And
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: sometimes when someone's trying to convince me not it doesn't.
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: Really I don't have to be convinced. I'll move on
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: and I don't think too much about it. You know,
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: in that picture that was there. Maybe I would tell them,
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: you know, you've got to pray about it. Whatever happens
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: to the train happens, and it's my mom, you know.
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: It's what I'm trying to say is that I'm realistic,
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: but I also know what strengthens me, what gives me strength.
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: And I think, you know, we are in a world
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: that there's a lot more mental wellness issues. There's a
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: lot more people of the ethics and values, et cetera.
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: And I think the whole world was blossoming and many
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: countries were blossoming when there was Geodism and Christian values.
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: Let's call it just the values. Don't even worry about
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: all the rest. And it gets a bit more complicated
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: when they're not there. And we do like influence our neighbor,
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: and we do do you know, we believe we know
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: everything about it when you know there's a few rules
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: there that were good. So that's the way I see it.
• 39:32
  Speaker 5: You know, before you have talked about having a cause,
• 39:37
  Speaker 5: having a purpose, and how it moves you. Do you
• 39:40
  Speaker 5: think that that is because of altruism. Is altruism what
• 39:45
  Speaker 5: moves you and also gives you a sense of happiness,
• 39:49
  Speaker 5: Does altruism have a part on this.
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: You know, Like if I was sitting when I was forty,
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: it would be different to today. Now that I've got
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: gray and all that, you start thinking about what do
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: I give back? What makes me happy now is yes,
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: looking at do I leave the place a better place?
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: You know?
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: And that's what I work for. It doesn't make me
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: much happier now getting a new Ferrari. It doesn't change
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: anything in my life. I don't have to prove any
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: of that anymore. It actually makes me feel probably worse
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: now if I did that. It's crazy. But when I
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: was younger, it was a good thing and it motivated me.
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: And you know, I always say you go through three
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: phases in life. You go through the need and you
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: need some stuff. You need food, you need accommodation, you
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: need a job. And then you go through greed, where
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: you think you need a lot more than you really need,
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: you know, and you get and get and get and
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: you compete with everybody and that's how you see yourself successful.
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: And then if you're lucky enough and some people get there,
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: it's freed where you actually understand less is more. You're
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: not competing with anyone, do what you can, you know,
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: like if you've got the financial freedom, you can do
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: what you like and live a life. You know, that's
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: your path, understand So I think we forget that, you
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: know that sometimes in life we also hitting different places,
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: and we want everyone to be the same as us.
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: When they twenty thirty forty May they won't be, you know,
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: they still go in through it and some people will
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: maybe stay greed until eighty five or ninety one hundred.
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: Doesn't there's nothing you're going to do about it. But
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: for me, I think I do stuff now to you know,
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: like leave this place better. I think that's it. I
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: want to be an example for my kids. You know.
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: I always tell them, like, if you google me and
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: there's shitty news, I'm going to really be said. I'm
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: going to talk about it not you know what I'm saying.
• 41:37
  Speaker 5: Thank you, And moving on to Mariu. You've also mentioned
• 41:41
  Speaker 5: before the importance that religious values have in our society,
• 41:47
  Speaker 5: and so I would like to ask you not today
• 41:51
  Speaker 5: that yes, I would like to ask you what role
• 41:55
  Speaker 5: do you think these values play on champing Western ethics?
• 42:00
  Speaker 4: A lot, that's the straight answer.
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: A lot.
• 42:03
  Speaker 4: I mean, that's another example of something that deeply influences us,
• 42:09
  Speaker 4: whether we like it or not, because the Western society,
• 42:13
  Speaker 4: like it or not, is built on Jewish Christian values.
• 42:17
  Speaker 4: That's the way it is. We may not agree with
• 42:19
  Speaker 4: all those values, but it's definitely built on top of that,
• 42:23
  Speaker 4: and so whether you accept it or not, it will influence.
• 42:27
  Speaker 4: It's a structure that exists that it will influence what
• 42:31
  Speaker 4: you are, what you achieve, and the way you think
• 42:33
  Speaker 4: about it. Right, which doesn't mean you cannot renounce from
• 42:37
  Speaker 4: those values. A lot of people do so on purpose,
• 42:41
  Speaker 4: right then they want to, you know, somehow cut the tize,
• 42:45
  Speaker 4: cut any bonds that exist with all the heritage, the
• 42:48
  Speaker 4: philosophical heritage, the religious heritage that we have in the
• 42:53
  Speaker 4: Western society. It's interesting because the people that usually do that,
• 42:57
  Speaker 4: they tend to praise other societies that are way more
• 43:00
  Speaker 4: religious than we are. It's a paradox, but they are
• 43:03
  Speaker 4: the ones that need to respond to respond to that.
• 43:06
  Speaker 4: Having said this, in my particular case, I think I've
• 43:08
  Speaker 4: never shared this in public, but I'm an agnostic. I'm
• 43:12
  Speaker 4: not a religious person right now. I used to be.
• 43:14
  Speaker 4: I was raised a Catholic. I used to go to
• 43:17
  Speaker 4: the church by myself, a lot of times alone by myself,
• 43:22
  Speaker 4: and I read the whole Bible. And then I started
• 43:25
  Speaker 4: parting ways with Catholicism and the idea that there's an
• 43:30
  Speaker 4: entity a here on earth, the Church, that knows how
• 43:35
  Speaker 4: to interpret God. That kind of repulsed me. And when
• 43:38
  Speaker 4: I lived in the US, I took the chance of
• 43:40
  Speaker 4: visiting some Protestant churches. So I would visit all the
• 43:43
  Speaker 4: Protestant churches from Methodists to pretense, I went to a
• 43:47
  Speaker 4: couple of them because there's a more direct link between
• 43:52
  Speaker 4: in this particular case, Jesus and the person. Then through Catholicism, right,
• 43:57
  Speaker 4: which is like an entity that stands there in the mids,
• 44:00
  Speaker 4: which has the authority to interpret what is the will
• 44:03
  Speaker 4: of God. And I did so, and I was closer
• 44:06
  Speaker 4: to Christianity than Catholicism. But still there was still too
• 44:11
  Speaker 4: many people in the middle, too many humans trying to
• 44:13
  Speaker 4: interpret whatever God meant us to be. And so I
• 44:17
  Speaker 4: mean again, I.
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: Can't wait, you can't pray directly.
• 44:20
  Speaker 4: No, I know, I know, I know, But the thing is,
• 44:22
  Speaker 4: in the end, I don't know whether God exists or not. Right,
• 44:26
  Speaker 4: I just somehow cut the middleman. The idea of churches
• 44:30
  Speaker 4: I still don't know. I'm not an atheist because an
• 44:32
  Speaker 4: atheist is a very zealid and religious person. It's someone
• 44:36
  Speaker 4: that strongly believes that God does not exist, and I
• 44:40
  Speaker 4: cannot say that with such certainty. But as an agnostic,
• 44:44
  Speaker 4: I can say I don't know, I don't know, we
• 44:46
  Speaker 4: don't know, and so I honestly don't know whether God
• 44:49
  Speaker 4: exists or not. I do understand those who need God
• 44:55
  Speaker 4: in their lives. I think it is somehow a very
• 45:00
  Speaker 4: very important support in someone's lives. I can understand that,
• 45:05
  Speaker 4: especially those who have to go through harsh times through grief,
• 45:09
  Speaker 4: it can be really I mean, you know, somehow a
• 45:16
  Speaker 4: big support someone's life. I understand. I totally understand that.
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: Somehow.
• 45:21
  Speaker 4: I wouldn't mind having a clearer vision that it exists.
• 45:25
  Speaker 4: But so far that's the way it is. But again,
• 45:30
  Speaker 4: I do acknowledge that our old society is based on
• 45:33
  Speaker 4: those Christian values, so we owe a lot to that.
• 45:37
  Speaker 4: Of course, it was not all good things. A lot
• 45:41
  Speaker 4: of bad things happened in the past, but due to
• 45:43
  Speaker 4: religion as well, which is another reason why I parted
• 45:47
  Speaker 4: ways with religion and with the human interpretation of what
• 45:51
  Speaker 4: would be the will of an existing God, of a deity.
• 45:56
  Speaker 4: So yeah, that's basically this is a.
• 45:59
  Speaker 5: Very small revision. But for what is worth, the fact
• 46:02
  Speaker 5: that you actually don't know if God exists or not
• 46:05
  Speaker 5: is actually part of faith because faith has to live
• 46:09
  Speaker 5: like and in the end with that always you can
• 46:12
  Speaker 5: never be sure, and that's why you believe and you
• 46:14
  Speaker 5: keep going and you hope for the best.
• 46:17
  Speaker 4: But it's also faith. Sorry, it's also faith to have
• 46:19
  Speaker 4: a dogma without being it rational. But it's the dogma
• 46:22
  Speaker 4: that God exists. It's going beyond the reason and accepting
• 46:25
  Speaker 4: that it exists. Right, that's also faith, I think.
• 46:29
  Speaker 5: No, it is definitely. So yeah, I know you defend
• 46:34
  Speaker 5: something very different from what we have just discussed. And
• 46:40
  Speaker 5: with that being said, can you tell us about rational
• 46:44
  Speaker 5: egoism and your beliefs on this?
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: Sure? I mean so I agree that just on the
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: on the faith issues, I agree that Western civilization is
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: very much influenced by the Judo tradition, if we want
• 47:01
  Speaker 3: to call it that. I'm just not sure it's influenced
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: for the better by that tradition. I suspect it's influenced
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: for the worst and not for the better. I think
• 47:11
  Speaker 3: a lot of the eels that we have in our
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: societies today are products of that. And if I can
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: pick up with something Tim said, which I get upset
• 47:22
  Speaker 3: every time I hear it, there's lots of you know, absolutely,
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: you're a very successful business. Right, You've done very well.
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: And I don't know much about you, but I suspect
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: you did it by creating stuff, by building companies, by
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: by building products, by serving your customers, by doing all this.
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: You never took anything. Why do you say you want
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: to give back? Right? Giving back assumes in the language
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: that you took something, But you didn't take anything.
• 47:52
  Speaker 4: You've created.
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: You've created jobs, You've created wealth for people. You've provided
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: people with immense products and values, and and and and
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: good things. I'm not saying don't do good. You know,
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: I think your business did good good. I think by
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: very every business mind I know somehow feels guilty for
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: the fact that they did a business and they want
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: to give back. But you shouldn't feel guilty. Your hero
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: for being a businessman, your model for being a businessman.
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: You created something, you built, something, you added to the world.
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: The world is a better place for you being in it,
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: even if you don't quote give back anything, So I
• 48:30
  Speaker 3: think it's I think it's tragic. I think I think
• 48:32
  Speaker 3: this idea that we have in our Judo Christian tradition,
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: and I think it's very much from there that somehow,
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: if I benefit from making the world a better place,
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: that's tainted. Profit is tainted, making money is tainted, and
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: if I have to, I have to repent in some
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: way later in life. Maybe. And I think that attitude
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: is completely wrong.
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: But I can reassure you that it's totally selfish with
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: me giving back because it makes me feel it's giving
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: mine exactly like it's my It's my selfish of giving
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: makes me feel amazing. Do you understand what? It's back
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: to my selfishness. And at the same time, it's it's
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: like I've enjoyed more giving than getting. It's weird. It's
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: actually weird, like give getting back it felt like work.
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: Giving feels like pleasure.
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: But didn't you enjoy it? I enjoyed.
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: It was a different time of my life. But if
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: I had to do it all over again, I'm enjoying
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: the giving a lot more and and again. And I
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: get to choose who I give it to and who
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: deserves it, and who I don't think deserves it, and
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: and all those kinds of things. So it's it's it's
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: selfish again, you know, in a way, but it's for me.
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: It's an amazing thing. I wouldn't think of it the
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: other way. I told my kids when I started giving
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: in with Brave Generation Academy, I told them, listen, do
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: you want me to leave you in inheritance or can
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: I fun?
• 50:02
  Speaker 4: And that they have gone with everything's gone fun.
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: They might have made a mistake, but you know what
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: I called him, it's probably going to help you because
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: you'll probably not get the wrong friends. You're probably going
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: to marry a bit of person. You're probably gonna enjoy building,
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: like you said, and getting all that back. And I'm
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: not going to take that away from you because You're
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: going to need to do it. So in the end,
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: to do it it is, it is fun, That's what
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: I'm saying. It's different times, you know, different strikes.
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: So so you asked about rational egoism or rational self interest.
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: So rans view of morality is that it should be
• 50:37
  Speaker 3: a guide to living a good life for yourself. That
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: you know, the purpose of morality is not to learn
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: how to sacrifice. It's not to learn how to you know,
• 50:46
  Speaker 3: uh place other people's while being above your own. It's
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: to figure out how to live the best life that
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: you can live for you and you know the conclusions
• 50:58
  Speaker 3: she comes to this.
• 50:59
  Speaker 4: If you want to do that in.
• 51:00
  Speaker 3: Order to live the best life for yourself, reason and
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: rationality are the tool you're going to use. And the
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: reason for that is it's it's how we get all
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: our values. I mean, at the end of the day,
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: you know, we have to think. You have to use
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: your mind. You have to figure it out to solve
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: problems and to figure out what works and what doesn't.
• 51:24
  Speaker 3: You know, trial and error, but you have to learn
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: from you know, I know people who fail and never
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: succeed right because they don't learn from their errors. You
• 51:31
  Speaker 3: have to constantly think, You have to constantly learn, You
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: have to constantly study, and you should approach your own
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: life that way. That is, you should constantly think about,
• 51:41
  Speaker 3: you know, how can I make myself better? How can
• 51:43
  Speaker 3: I make my character better? How can I attain you know,
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: values that that will lead to greater flourishing and greater success,
• 51:52
  Speaker 3: and that all requires reason. At the end of the day,
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: man is a rational animal. That's how Aristotle defined it,
• 51:57
  Speaker 3: and I think he was absolutely right. We we survive
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: by using our reason, by using our rationality, and that
• 52:04
  Speaker 3: is what's required in order to survive. And her morality
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: is a morality built around this concept of each one
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: of us should strive to make our life the best
• 52:13
  Speaker 3: life that it can be. It doesn't mean treating other
• 52:16
  Speaker 3: people badly, quite the country. It doesn't mean exploiting other people. No,
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: I mean that doesn't mean like cheating, is stealing, all
• 52:23
  Speaker 3: of that actually lead to a worst life. A good
• 52:26
  Speaker 3: life is about being rational, which means being honest, which
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: means being productive, which means building and creating and making stuff.
• 52:34
  Speaker 6: Uh, and.
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: You know it's very counter I think too. Again, a
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: traditional Judo Christian morality which is about sacrifice, which of
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: us placing the interests of other people above your own,
• 52:47
  Speaker 3: which is about if you feel good about helping somebody,
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: maybe you're not doing it for the right reason and
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: maybe it's not moral right, which is something cont would say.
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: Or No religion is bringing that to a lot other
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: religion and that's why when you're talking about the Catholicism
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: and all that it brings on, that you have to sacrifice.
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: But in the Bible, it actually says use your talents,
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: and God got upset when you didn't make money with
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: the talents he gave you. Do you understand what I'm saying.
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: So it's not about he wants you to be poor,
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: doesn't want you to use your talents. Except but religion
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: changes a lot, you know, we have religion in Christianity.
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: There's three thousand ways of seeing it. That's why for me,
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: I don't need the three thousand ways. I see it
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: my way. I see it directly. I don't need to
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: speak via a whole lot of people or pray to
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: a lot of people. Yeah, I can go direct It's okay.
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: It's good, and it keeps my values good. It gives
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: me answer it. Also, I saw it in my kids.
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: I saw it in my kids and that when I
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: knew there's got to be a God when they were born,
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: and I saw that and some of the stuff they
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: do and all that, I don't have the question anymore.
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: There's got to be something, But I'm not yet to
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: convert anyway. But for me, it works so good, you know.
• 53:57
  Speaker 3: So I became an atheist when I was sex and
• 54:01
  Speaker 3: literally when I was six, going to a very religious
• 54:03
  Speaker 3: day school where they were teaching the Bible and teaching
• 54:07
  Speaker 3: all this stuff, and I came to conclusion none of
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: it made any sense. It was all a nice story,
• 54:12
  Speaker 3: just like we tell stories. And they could prove none
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: of it, and they could show me no evidence of
• 54:17
  Speaker 3: its existence. And I've had kids, I've gone through that
• 54:21
  Speaker 3: process and it's never shaken my my atheism and atheism.
• 54:27
  Speaker 3: I don't think it's a dogma. It's something doesn't exist,
• 54:32
  Speaker 3: that's all. But that's it's not a positive, it's a negative.
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: And that's what's good about Christianity.
• 54:36
  Speaker 4: It's your choice.
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: Like we don't force it on you, and we don't
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: text you more, we don't.
• 54:41
  Speaker 3: Make questions, don't force it on you.
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: Well, I'm talking about study the history, but look on
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: in the Bible, it's your choice. No one's going to
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: force its religion, not force it on but not not
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: in the Bible.
• 54:55
  Speaker 3: It's your choice.
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: Different to other books where it's not your choice. If
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: you don't do it, you get text or if you
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: don't do it, you get killed.
• 55:03
  Speaker 3: And your choice.
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: You know, I hope you in heaven, but if not,
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: it was your choice.
• 55:08
  Speaker 3: Probably not either way, Probably not either way.
• 55:14
  Speaker 4: That actually reminded me of one of the they became.
• 55:19
  Speaker 4: They were friends in the beginning, but then they somehow
• 55:21
  Speaker 4: parted the ways Rothbard and I ran right. She had
• 55:26
  Speaker 4: some kerfuffles with him, but in one of his books.
• 55:29
  Speaker 4: He has amazing books about economic thought in history. And
• 55:33
  Speaker 4: the first experience of communist experience that is known, at
• 55:37
  Speaker 4: least that we have some evidence about, was done by
• 55:42
  Speaker 4: a Protestant faction, the Ana Baptist absolutely in the north
• 55:46
  Speaker 4: of Germany. They I think it was in the north
• 55:49
  Speaker 4: of what we now call Germany. And it was kind
• 55:52
  Speaker 4: of a commune, right, and had the same that this
• 55:56
  Speaker 4: was way before Marx, right, and it had the same
• 55:59
  Speaker 4: lodge that you know, you wanted to get rid of
• 56:02
  Speaker 4: the idea of a family, and so the children would
• 56:06
  Speaker 4: be brought by the entire community everything, yeah, like kibutz
• 56:10
  Speaker 4: in Israel. So everything would be shared. There would be
• 56:13
  Speaker 4: no private property, open rooms, right, And as you can imagine,
• 56:18
  Speaker 4: it went really well. But it's interesting because the foundation
• 56:23
  Speaker 4: for that idea this had a religious route, right, in
• 56:28
  Speaker 4: this case a Christian Protestant.
• 56:30
  Speaker 3: Goes even earlier. It's actually you see the first communes
• 56:34
  Speaker 3: under Catholicism in very early on in Christian history you
• 56:38
  Speaker 3: see the existence of communes. So yes, the idea of
• 56:43
  Speaker 3: socialism and communism has roots. And one of the things
• 56:46
  Speaker 3: about the Bible is you can pretty much read what
• 56:50
  Speaker 3: you want into it. It's written in such a way that,
• 56:53
  Speaker 3: you know, I know socialists who read the Bible and
• 56:57
  Speaker 3: swear that it's all, you know, summon an amount, it's
• 57:00
  Speaker 3: pure communism and socialism. And I know capitalists, you know
• 57:04
  Speaker 3: Christians who read the same passages and say, no, see,
• 57:07
  Speaker 3: this is all capitalists. And I think, I think to
• 57:10
  Speaker 3: a large extent. You know, we we used to study
• 57:13
  Speaker 3: the Old Testament in school, and we used to study
• 57:17
  Speaker 3: a few sentences, right, a few passages, and then fifty
• 57:21
  Speaker 3: rabbi is commenting on those, and all fifty rabbis disagreed
• 57:25
  Speaker 3: with one another about what the passage meant. And you
• 57:28
  Speaker 3: know it's it takes.
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: That's the reading. You can never read a verse. You've
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: got to read a few verses, but then you have
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: to read. It's the same as now with Trump, whatever
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: it says, they didn't take it away and bring the other.
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: But at the end you've got to listen to the
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: whole thing.
• 57:44
  Speaker 4: And actually that reminds me sorry that I do have
• 57:47
  Speaker 4: some socialist friends that are Catholic and they swear by
• 57:51
  Speaker 4: God that Jesus was socialist, absolutely absolutely.
• 57:55
  Speaker 5: Before we get lost into politics as well, I would
• 57:58
  Speaker 5: like to ask you free the same question that guides
• 58:02
  Speaker 5: us to our last topic today, that is about the
• 58:04
  Speaker 5: principal man. And the three of the three of you
• 58:08
  Speaker 5: have shared your perspectives on happiness, success, ethics, even religion,
• 58:15
  Speaker 5: and I would like to ask you for your perspective
• 58:19
  Speaker 5: on the following question. Can a man without principles be
• 58:24
  Speaker 5: ever truly happy or successful? From your point of view?
• 58:30
  Speaker 5: And we can start.
• 58:33
  Speaker 3: No, I don't think you can be happy without principles.
• 58:35
  Speaker 3: I think you've got to live by something, to live
• 58:40
  Speaker 3: minute by minute and change your mind and go in
• 58:43
  Speaker 3: different directions and without guidance, without clear guidance. Now you
• 58:47
  Speaker 3: have to have the right principles. There's the wrong principles.
• 58:50
  Speaker 3: It's going to lead you down a bad road. And
• 58:52
  Speaker 3: they've been monsters in history who are very principled, but
• 58:56
  Speaker 3: they were monsters and therefore they lived gble lives. But
• 59:01
  Speaker 3: I think that the people who don't have principles, people
• 59:03
  Speaker 3: who are constantly shifting and you know, and they lie
• 59:07
  Speaker 3: one day and they tell the truth another day. Because
• 59:09
  Speaker 3: there's no principle of tell the truth. Cannot be happy,
• 59:12
  Speaker 3: they cannot really be successful.
• 59:14
  Speaker 4: Now they can be.
• 59:15
  Speaker 3: There's one and I apologize in advance for this. There's
• 59:19
  Speaker 3: one profession in which you get rewarded for being unprincipled,
• 59:24
  Speaker 3: only one. You can't do it in business you get
• 59:28
  Speaker 3: washed out. And that one profession is politics. And and
• 59:33
  Speaker 3: you know, the prime example of that is in the
• 59:35
  Speaker 3: White House. Right now, you've got You've got somebody who's
• 59:38
  Speaker 3: completely unprincipled, who has achieved a pinnacle of success in politics.
• 59:45
  Speaker 3: So that is the one area in life where it
• 59:49
  Speaker 3: gains you success. I don't think happiness. I don't think
• 59:52
  Speaker 3: he's happy, but I think it gains you success. But
• 59:55
  Speaker 3: that's the only really realm in life where it works
• 59:58
  Speaker 3: that way.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: I agree. I think you won't and I think even
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 2: having strong principles, even when they against the current, at
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: least people know what you are and they will start
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 2: to respect it. But if you swap and change, it's
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: actually the worst spondless person. And in business, I prefer
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: not to deal with with that. I prefer to know
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: what you're dealing with what they stand by. And that's
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: what makes me sad. Nowadays, you know, the handshake used
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: to mean something and you knew the principles and whose
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: hand you were shaking. You know, now it means you know,
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: it's what contract this, what that? And how do we
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: get out of it? Et cetera. And I think going forward,
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: we're going to need a world with principles. I think
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: those are going to be the most advanche advantageous assets
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: you will get will be if you've got ethics and
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: values and principles and we don't teach that. You know that,
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: we don't talk about it. And before we were lucky
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: because we had parents who would give us experiences and
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: try to do that. We grandparents would give us values
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 2: and ethics and tell us stories about what happened. If
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: you did lie, the wolf wouldn't you know, no one
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: would help you if the wolf came. All those kinds
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: of things. And we're losing all those things. When we
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: had community that we also if we were a liar,
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: you'd stop getting credit or you would stop you know,
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: you you would get out of that community and you'd
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: be sad. Now you know, it's it's more important our
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 2: comments on social media. It's how do we get onto
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: the bandwagon? That's right, and it's gonna that's got less
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: people that oppose it because they don't want to say anything,
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 2: because it's just going to be like they don't want
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: to be attacked. They're too busy, they're working. Do you understand?
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: So I think it is like you've got to have principles,
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: I think, and that's going to become a value, that's
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 2: going to become currency.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 4: My turn, well, I think we need to define our
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 4: terms so we can answer that. What is happiness? I
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 4: would say that and correct me if I'm wrong here.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 4: From a rand's perspective and yours as well, happiness is
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 4: a rational achievement, right. It is not an emotional achievement.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 4: It's not a chemical chemistry happening in our body releasing
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 4: hormones that make us happy. Now, from that point of view,
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 4: I fully agree that you need to stand principle and
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 4: believe according to what or actually live your life according
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 4: to what you truly believe. As a way to achieve this,
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 4: I wouldn't say exactly happiness perhaps accomplishment, right that you
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 4: want to your life to be meaningful, you want to
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 4: make sure that you lived according to your principles, and
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 4: you lived for the sake of yourself and not for
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 4: anyone else's sake, as it is written in Atlas Shrug
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 4: and in many other pieces of fine rent. So if
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 4: you define happiness this way, I think it makes perfect sense.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 4: I see happiness also, not that I discard this view.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 4: I think it makes sense. But from another perspective, as
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 4: well as a more ethonist perspective, includes emotions. It also
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 4: includes all the chemical reactions that happened in our body,
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 4: and so you can without you know, significant achievements in
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 4: your life, actually be happy. You don't need much to
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 4: be happy. I learned that through my own experience when
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 4: I was traveling around the world for a year with
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 4: only my backpack, so I didn't have much money on
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 4: my own, and I don't know, I lost account of
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 4: how many times I ate spaghetti with the tuna fish.
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 4: So I was living on a budget. It didn't have
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 4: much time, and I was really really happy. Why because
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 4: of all the chances and opportunities right of stumbling upon
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 4: really interesting people. When I lived in Brazil, I mean,
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 4: my days were on the beach and didn't have much
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 4: more than that, and I was truly happy, emotionally happy.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 4: I was achieving a lot professionally, no doubt, not at all.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 4: But I do remember that when I was coming back
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 4: on the plane and I thought, well, if this fall,
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 4: that's it. I'm good. I did a lot of things.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 4: I'm happy. I'll die happy. Of course, by then I
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 4: didn't have my children, my offspring, So now in retrospective,
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 4: there were still a lot of things that I wanted
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 4: to do. But back then I knew that I was
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 4: truly happy. So again, if happiness, if you see it
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 4: from a different angle from what makes you, I mean good,
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 4: feel good, what makes you feel good? I think that
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 4: it goes beyond leaving according to your principles. But I
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 4: think that's truly important as well.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 3: So I just want to make clear that I wouldn't
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 3: negate the fact that it's emotions involved. Right, Happiness is
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 3: something you feel, and emotions are important. She would just
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 3: say that emotions are not arbitrary. Right, Emotions come from somewhere.
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 3: They come from your values, they come from your conclusions,
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 3: they come from decisions you've already made. They're not random,
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 3: and look, some people do have random chemical stuff going
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 3: on in their minds that make it impossible for them
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 3: to be happy. They could be, you know, clinically depressed
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 3: or schizophrenic or something like that. I don't think I
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 3: randnize all of that. She would say that that rational
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 3: achievement is consistent with emotions. That is, that your emotions
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 3: respond to the higherarchy of values that you have created.
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 3: And as we said, in different ages, in different periods
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 3: of our lives, we have a different hierarchy of values.
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 3: We choose different things. I don't think. I mean, I'm
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 3: guessing that if you went, you know, backpacking right now,
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 3: you might not be as happy as you were when
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 3: you were eighteen or something. Yeah, you've got kids, you've
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 3: experienced a Korea, Well, yeah, escape from them. So it's
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 3: I don't think they're in conflict. In other words, I
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 3: think they serve the same purpose. It's also true that Aristotle,
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 3: you know, said that you can only know you're really
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 3: happy you live the happy life the moment before you die,
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 3: because it's it's a cumulative thing. Right now, I don't
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 3: think that's quite true, but it is. It's happiness is
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 3: not joy or fun, although they contribute, Happiness is accumulative,
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 3: you know, sense of the life that you're having. It's
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 3: a it's a state of being, you know, are you
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 3: in a state of being that's happy? And I think
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 3: that's something that you have to accumulate, some experience and
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 3: some life in order to be able to say, yeah,
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 3: I really am happy.
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 5: Thank you so much. I think that one thing is
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 5: clear from hearing all of your perspectives that whether through
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 5: reason or faith, our principles and our values end up
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 5: shaping pretty much who we become and the way we
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 5: go and move through life. Before moving on to the
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 5: questions from the audience, I would like to call Migel
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 5: for a little announcement.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: We have a little announcement. So on your seats you
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: have some flyers with a QR code, So that QR
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: code leads you to a link for the iron RAN
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: conference we're going to host in Porto next year in
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: April from the seventeenth, seventeenth to the nineteenth and you
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: can sign up or apply for a scholarship and intend
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: it for free.
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 2: Okay, so that's possible as well.
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: And I would like everyone to congratulate Marko R. So
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: basically there was an essay contest and he wanted so
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: at the end just come to the front and we'll
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: leave you the prize, okay. So and outside we have
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: on a table as well some booklets about what is
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: capitalism and about some ideas of objectivism, and you can
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: grab them and take them with you.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 2: So that's that's good.
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: So now without further ado.
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 2: We have questions.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: So if you guys want to ask questions to the panel, uh,
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: just raise your hand and I'll go with you and
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: hand you the mic.
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 2: There you go.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 5: Good.
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 8: Hey, So my name's Philip. Hello.
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 2: I'd like to pick up on the topic about.
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 8: Religion because I went through kind of the same experience
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 8: as Yahn, not at six years old, a bit later,
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 8: you know, but I was raised the Catholic.
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 3: I went to.
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 8: What do we call it a non school uh for
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 8: ten years something, and at the end of that it
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 8: all turned into not.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 4: But I have a question.
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 8: The team said that hope comes from faith, and even
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 8: if there's outside circumstances that can make us not very happy,
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 8: if we have hope, we can still be happy. So
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 8: what if someone doesn't have faith, That's my question.
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 3: I'd say you can have rational hope, that is, there
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 3: can be reasons in the world out there to believe
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 3: that that good things are coming, that it's not right now.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 3: I think irrational hope is irrational and can be very destructive.
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 3: I think a lot of the problems in the world
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 3: of people being passive and hoping, hoping things happen to them,
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 3: rather than going and doing stuff to change their circumstances,
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 3: to change the world in which you have. See, you
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 3: can be rationally hopeful based on evidence that good things
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 3: can happen and good things will happen, or you can
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 3: be irrational hopeful, which makes you very passive and can
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 3: be very self destructive.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 2: And you know, it's exactly true. Like because you have
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 2: faith doesn't mean that I don't have rationality, you know,
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 2: Like I always tell my learners that, you know, their
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 2: parents are always telling them the world's about to end
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 2: because there's going to be a third World war and
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 2: it's this, and it's that. And sometimes when I'm speaking
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 2: to them, I'm wondering, why should they be studying, because
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 2: the way their parents are telling them, you know that
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 2: it's going to be the this is going to do that,
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 2: and we're going to end. And I always tell them,
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 2: you know, rationally, you've got to think of this rationally
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 2: like in my day when I was your age, there
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 2: was conflicts in the Middle East, there was the Cold War.
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 2: We had you know, this ozone layer that was like
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 2: going to give us all cancer. My mom was putting
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 2: cream and stuff on me, like I couldn't just relax.
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 2: We had Y two K problem, you know, so that
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 2: was going on. I had a friend who bought a
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 2: BMW the day before Y two K because he said
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 2: he wouldn't pay it the next day if they'll have
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 2: to pay it the rationality, and he says, and if
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 2: the world ends, I'm inside of BMW. But it didn't end,
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 2: and he paid for it. You know. So you look
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 2: at those things, and you know, rationale gives me hope
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 2: that because of those things there. And then my son
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 2: actually said something that gave me a lot of hope
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 2: when we were going on about all the you know,
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 2: global warming and all that. You know, definitely there's climate change,
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 2: like you're not going to fight against climate change. But
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 2: he also told me that I don't believe I think
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 2: we've been very arrogant, that we think we changing everything,
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 2: because he did. In that time when we saw a
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 2: Brave Generation academy, we didn't have a curriculum, and that
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 2: was the best when we didn't have a curriculum and
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 2: he got to just do things that were interesting. And
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 2: he did an extinction and he came back and he
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 2: says that there's been six extinctions and we weren't yet,
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 2: and we weren't yet. Man wasn't yet. But things happened.
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 2: You understand what I'm saying. So it gave me again
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 2: rational hope that you know, we will whatever happens happens.
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 2: You know what my faith and all that does for
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 2: me is that maybe if I you know, I want
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 2: to believe that in times when I don't have rational offers,
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 2: I've got that to lean on. You Undertand I'm saying
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 2: I was lucky I didn't go to a Catholic school
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 2: because it seems like it's a tough thing.
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 6: This I know, but all these religious ones seems really tough.
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 6: So it's also about balance in life. It's sick I libriu, like,
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 6: you've got to have balance.
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 2: You can't be this, you can't be that. Also, if
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 2: you do become something, you become so pushed on that
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 2: that you know it's no good. You're actually going to
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 2: draft people away. You know what I'm saying, you need balance,
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 2: you need to think. And that's the problem. We're not
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 2: made to think. We're not. In today's world, everything is
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 2: about you know, I keep telling our learners you've got
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 2: to think for yourself. Please don't fall into other things.
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 2: You've got to think. You got to think, find be
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 2: controversial and on thinking and then come up with it.
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 2: We're now doing these conlundrums like which is similar to this,
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 2: Like we'll say, you know, there's a rocket that free
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 2: pass or or not a rocky by a comet, and
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 2: who gets to name it? The little glal who saw
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 2: it in a room, the guy in the space station
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 2: who gets and then you change it because you think,
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 2: you start to think and you discuss it, and that's
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 2: going to that should be education going forward. It's like
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 2: discussions that we're.
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 3: Spending way too much with young kids on emotion and
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 3: not enough. I mean, they're very good at emoting, they
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 3: don't need out help with that. And yet and yet
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 3: so much of education today is about emotion and socialization
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 3: and things like that rather than about thinking.
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 8: I have another question, actually, so in regards to values,
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 8: some would say that we live in a post modern
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 8: society and the construction of value and meaning. So my
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 8: question is, would you say that we are experiencing a
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 8: society that has less values or more extreme values in
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 8: a way.
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 4: That's a very interesting question. So this would launch us
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 4: into a very long discussion about the origins of postmodern modernism.
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 4: But one of its philosophical rules roots is the idea
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 4: that morals are relative. There's what we call relative moralism.
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 4: So there are no universal values now, the idea of
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 4: universal values and principles of human rights. That's a very
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 4: liberal heritage. It's actually it has some It is an
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 4: offspring of Kent's idea, and it is something that we
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 4: used to accept in a very as part of common sense,
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 4: that there are universal values that we should strive for.
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 4: We may not have achieved them yet, but we're making
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 4: our ways. And some philosophers somehow created this idea that
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 4: everything is relative, there is no morality. I don't know
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 4: if somehow Nietzsche, which has nothing to do with those postmodernists,
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 4: was somehow responsible for that when he said that we
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 4: should go beyond good and evil, beyond morals. Right, it
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 4: is about the power and the capacity, the will to
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 4: power to do stuff that somehow opened the way or
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 4: gave leeway to that kind of of reasoning. But of
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 4: course the true responsibles for that were others. For co Althuser,
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 4: there were other philosophers that somehow created this moral relativism.
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 4: And I think that it is our duty to return
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 4: to normal and to establish that, yes, there are universal
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 4: values that we should strive for. Yes, like John Locke
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 4: said when he helped not himself directly he found the
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 4: United States, but he was the philosophical father of the
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 4: United of the United States. And when he said clearly
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 4: that we hold these values and these truths to be
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 4: self evident, that all individuals have a life, to a right,
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 4: a natural right, the god like right to life, property,
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 4: and the pursuit of happiness. Those are universal values. There
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 4: are many other universal values, and I think that it
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 4: is our duty to make sure that they somehow are
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 4: you know, are kept as an important heritage of of
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 4: of our society.
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 3: So I think in modern times I agree with that.
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think there's definitely an abandonment of the
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 3: idea of universal values, particularly on on the on the
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 3: modern left and those influenced by postmodernism, but also on
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 3: the modern right. There's a there's a the idea of
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 3: the universal values. All the right replaces them with things
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 3: like national values, racial values, tribal values, which is just
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 3: as bad as what the left is doing, which is
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 3: no values. They could completely. So what we're seeing is
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 3: the abandonment of universality, the abandonment of searching for those truths.
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 3: I wish they were self evident. It turns out they're not,
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 3: you know, I think in that sense Luck was wrong
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 3: or Jefferson was wrong. But to them there were self
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 3: evidence because they've done all the thinking. They figured it out.
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 3: It was so obvious to them. But most people don't
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 3: do that. So I think today we live in a
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 3: time of bad values, of wrong values, of evil values,
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 3: and even people who claim they don't have any values.
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 3: I mean, there's some like that, and that's a nihilism.
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 3: You see the nihilism. You see nihilism on the left,
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 3: annihilism and the right politically today, which is they just
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 3: want to see stuff burned. They don't care about anything.
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 3: They just want to see stuff destroyed. They want to
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 3: tear things down.
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 3: They support the most horrible barbarians in the world. They
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 3: hate civilization. That to me is nihilism. That to me
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 3: is the negation of all human values. And the response
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 3: is unfortunately, you know, tribal and nationalistic and bad as well.
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 3: So we're seeing more mo nihilism across the political spectrum.
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 4: Sorry, Tim, may I just add something else because I
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 4: think you open a here, a venue for discussion that's
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 4: really interesting, which is basically, I think that we should
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 4: all be quite aware that ideas shape the world, and
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 4: postmodernism is a good example of that because it also
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 4: influenced aesthetics. You were talking and I was thinking about
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 4: fountain Head, and I was thinking about the ideological discussions
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 4: that exist in aesthetics in architecture and the idea that
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 4: the idea of beauty was heritage of the bourgeoisie, of
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 4: the capitalist society. There is no beauty because there is
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 4: no ugly. We are all equal, and the postmodernists currents
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 4: of architecture follows precisely that that idea that there is
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 4: no beauty does not exist. Actually, there was another, not
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 4: line of thought, but another current in architecture that would
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 4: renounce all of neo classicism, which I ren tend to
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 4: appreciate along with article right if I'm not She.
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 3: Rejected neoclassical neoclassical architecture in the modern world.
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 4: I mean it was great, yeah back then at its time.
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 3: In the modern world, we have new materials, we have
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 3: new techniques, we have new knowledge, we have new engineering,
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 3: that the architecture should reflect all the new knowledge that
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 3: we have.
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah, But my point was there was a current in
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 4: architecture that would reject neo classicism because Itler enjoyed it
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 4: a lot, right, So, simply because someone that was terribly
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 4: evil enjoyed that kind of architecture and thought to be
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 4: an example road model for what beautiful means in terms
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 4: of aesthetics, then got rejected. And more importantly, this idea
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 4: of something being beautiful that would mean that it is
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 4: beautiful in comparison to art, in comparison to something else
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 4: that is not as beautiful is ugly. But if we
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 4: believe in equalitarianism that everything is the same, therefore those
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 4: concepts don't even apply and they destroy those concepts. And
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 4: so I think this proves the point that ideas definitely
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 4: shaped the world for the good and for the bad.
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 3: And actually, I think in aesthetics is the place where
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 3: they first appear. So if you look at postmodernism, it
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 3: first appears in painting and sculpture. I mean you get
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 3: the complete shadowing of the idea beauty, of the idea
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 3: of representation. I've did anything. You get splashes of paint,
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 3: and somehow that's odd. That's so postmodernist. It's odd because
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 3: I feel like it's odd. Right, No skill required, no
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 3: attention to detail, nothing projected, no ideas. Just somebody felt
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 3: like splashing paint on a canvas hanging on the wall. Yes,
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 3: or you and all hanging on the wall, which is
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 3: of course famous. And but it was a nihilistic statement.
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 3: This was exactly the point of the Uno on the wall.
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 3: It's to say anything is odd if we feel like
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 3: it's odd, anything is ard if we say it's art,
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 3: and that empties the concept completely. Right, If you look
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 3: at the U and AL on the wall and you
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 3: have Michelangelo's David next to it, they're not in the
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 3: same category. They're not the same thing. Michelangelo's David is art.
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 3: You and AL on the wall is not art. It's
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 3: a U and ALU on the wall. That's all it is.
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 3: But postmoderism shatters that. It says, no, you can't define anything. Anything,
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 3: anything goes.
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 4: Whatever we feel like.
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 2: And that's the thing.
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 3: I think.
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 2: If you don't have values, you'll follow anything, you'll believe
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 2: in anything, that's the way you'll go. And if you
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 2: do have values, you'll stand for something and you will,
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 2: you know, like fight for something. And I think that's that's,
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 2: you know what, what makes me happy that I've got values,
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 2: because sometimes I don't even understand art. You know, it's
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 2: so easy to just throw everything out, destroy everything, and
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 2: then still say that you came for everyone.
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: We have another question.
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 9: So, according to objectivism, the process of finding our own values,
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 9: so the ultimate answer is that to get the values
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 9: that our life affirming seems a bit insufficient to me.
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 9: And then also the the process of emotions following the
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 9: reasoning conclusions, and then emotions follow from that because we
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 9: cannot escape human genetics and brain chemistry, so and we're
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 9: born with that that biological knowledge that gives us positive
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 9: and negative emotions. So I don't agree that emotions follow
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 9: the reasoning process, as it seems like ourent to objectives,
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 9: like maybe I'm wrong, but it seems like it's a
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 9: blank canvas. And then do a reasoning process and then
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 9: kind of define what you want and then everything follows along.
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: So.
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 3: Objectives and holds that. You're not born with ideas. You're
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 3: born with inclinations. You're born with certain abilities and you
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 3: know at some level certain you know connections in the
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 3: brain that are different between human beings. No, I mean
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 3: my two kids were born, My two sons were born,
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 3: and from second one, from the very moment they came out,
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 3: you knew they were different, right, So there was something
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 3: different about them. But it's on ideas. Ideas come from
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 3: integrating factor reality. There's nothing coded into our DNA that
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 3: is an idea. Again, there's an inclination, there's potentials, there's
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 3: things like that. You can see that emotions a kind,
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 3: tequences and conclusions all the time. You fall in love
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 3: with somebody. I was thinking about that, and you're passionately
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 3: in love with this woman in my case, right, passionate
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 3: in love with this woman, and then you learn something
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 3: about her character she's a liar, and you fall in
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 3: Now you might come to the conclusion, oh, she's Alie,
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 3: she's not a good person. Your emotions might still be
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 3: tugging you towards her. It might take a few days, weeks,
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 3: months to get over your attraction. Your love to her,
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 3: but it will if you've integrated the fact that she's
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 3: a liar, she's not good for you. So your emotions
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 3: will change based on your conclusion. You know, when I
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 3: was little, a dog kind of kind of attacked me.
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 3: I think, who knows what he was intending. Maybe we
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 3: just wanted to be nice, but you know, it created
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 3: a fear of dogs and until very late in life,
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 3: like I see a dog and it like I'm scared now.
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 3: But you can change that. You can think about what
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 3: caused it. You know it's cog native therapy or whatever.
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 3: You can think about what caused it. You can think about,
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 3: no dogs are knife, I can go yeah, I can
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 3: go play with dogs and everything's fine. And then you
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 3: get rid of that emotion, and emotion just goes away.
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 3: So your emotions are your emotions are product now. Not
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 3: everything that we classify as an emotion is actually an emotion.
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 3: You know, do we have the capacity to fear, like
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 3: the flight what is it? Flight? Fight? Flight? So yeah,
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 3: that that exists, But what causes us to be afraid
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 3: is a consequence of conclusions that we come. You can
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 3: take a baby and you can put it on a
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 3: glass thing with just a you know, a steep thing,
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 3: and the baby will just crawl right across it. And
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 3: at some point they learn they can fall and the
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 3: falling's not good, and suddenly they get to the edge
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 3: and they're afraid because they don't know what will happen. Right,
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 3: So they've learned, and based on that learning, fear has
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 3: arised and before they don't take suit an action, and
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 3: then they can learn, oh there's glass, yet I can
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 3: walk on it. They walk on it, it's no problem.
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 3: So we constantly emotions are changing based on our conclusions.
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 4: Can I just follow up? Because it's actually the question
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 4: very interesting. It also perplexes me when I read through
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 4: Rand's books and we have the opportunity to discuss that
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 4: on my podcast Subscribe. It was a very product placement.
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 4: It was a very interesting discussion. But the point is
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 4: you framed the way you framed falling in love right,
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 4: And you said, basically, you fall in love and then
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 4: you find something you don't like, and slowly you start
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 4: realizing that perhaps you were wrong, right, that your emotions
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 4: don't follow your reasoning and you're not right. But if
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 4: you do the exercise the other way around, right, Because
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 4: according to Randian's line of thought emotions, fall or reason,
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 4: And let's try to apply that to falling in love. Right,
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 4: you do, like a list of traits that the person
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 4: should have. Right, should be that way, it should feel
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 4: that or look that way, be intelligent, beautiful, whatever, Right,
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 4: and you try to find people that match all the
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 4: criteria and imagine you can and still you may be
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 4: enabled to love those people that completely abide by those
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 4: the criteria that you rationally define. And on the other hand,
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 4: you may just stumble upon someone that doesn't have half
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 4: of the criteria that he previously defined, and then boom,
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 4: suddenly there's something going on. Call it chemistry, call it emotions,
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 4: but you fall deeply in love with that person. That
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 4: totally changes, right. And then eventually you start rationalizing why
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 4: you fell in love with that person. Right, you start
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 4: going through the list and see, oh, she has that trade,
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 4: so it's started to make it compatible.
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, sand had a whole theory of romantic love. So
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 3: she had a theory about this. So and she understood this, right,
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 3: And the characters in the books fall in love often
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 3: very quickly, right time, slowly, but often very quickly. And
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 3: her view is, you don't fall in love with a
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 3: list of qualities. And to make a list of qualities
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 3: and go find somebody is a recipe for failure. You
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 3: fall in love with somebody is what she called sense
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 3: of life. You fall in love with somebody's approach to reality.
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 3: You know, the way they handle themselves, the way they
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 3: carry themselves, the way they respond to different things. You
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 3: can watch somebody look at art and say, yeah, you
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 3: know there's something special about that. Autis I think brings
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 3: that out in us. Aesthetics brings that out in us.
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 3: So she she completely understood, doesn't mean and so, so
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 3: it is a conclusion, but it's But what happens with
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 3: emotions is we don't think usually, huh, this person has this, this,
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 3: this is okay, I should fall in love with him.
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 3: What happens is you fall in love with him. And
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 3: because the emotion is automatic, it's based on your sense
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 3: of life, it's based on your conclusions that you've come to.
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 3: It's based on who you are and your character, and
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 3: it's based on how you evaluate other people. But it's quick,
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 3: it's automatic. It's not the thinking about this. It's like art.
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 3: You don't go up to painting and go okay, I
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 3: like it, right, you look at it and go, I
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 3: like this painting, and then you analyze why you like it,
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 3: because the painting is appealing to something in you, your
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 3: sense about existence that is based on the conclusions you've
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 3: come to in the past. So it's not random, it's
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 3: not arbitrary. Your emotions are not arbitrary and random. They're based.
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 3: And sometimes we don't even know where our conclusions came from.
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 3: And this is the whole point of psychotherapy. Some of
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 3: you know, Foid is right in the sense that's some
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 3: of our conclusions we make when we're very young, and
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 3: we can't remember them. We don't know what they are,
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 3: and they're already and they're shaping us. So you know,
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 3: part of the reasons if that's a problem, part of
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 3: the reasons to do therapy is to try to figure
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 3: that out. So it's it's emotions are not I think,
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 3: I feel. That's not how it works. I feel. These
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 3: feelings are based on conclusions of the best. Now, sometimes
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 3: when you discover something new about somebody, it feeds into
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 3: that equation and now you fall out in love. But
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 3: it takes time because it has to be integrated into
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 3: the system.
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 9: It's okay, Can I just yep, okay, he listening. So
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 9: so I'm going to give a simple example. We are
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 9: born social beings. We can, through a reasoning process, decide
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 9: that if I live if I lived alone, I could
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 9: be better, I could accomplish more. But then I cannot
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 9: live alone because my chemistry or it is very difficult
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 9: for most people to change their emotions.
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 3: And there I think that's wrong. We've got a number
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 3: of one premises. There you you cannot live better living alone.
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 3: You know, society is incredible val you. You know, Adam
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 3: Smith showed us a division of labor specialization benefits you enormously.
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 3: So when you're alone, you miss all those things. The
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 3: stand up living is lower, your quality of life is lower.
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 3: You know, we gain enormously from friendship and love and
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 3: human interaction. Rationally, we gain from other people all kinds
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 3: of values. So when you live alone, you miss that
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 3: and nobody. That's not because it's chemical, it's because in reality,
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 3: other people do things that benefit me. And I realize that,
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 3: and I don't want to be alone because I want
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 3: to be with other people and gain their benefit. Indeed,
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 3: when when you know in some societies, you go out
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 3: there and you find that people are not very nice
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 3: and you're not benefiting from them, and it's sad when
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 3: you have to be alone because you want to escape them,
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 3: because you are not benefiting from all those all those
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 3: values that you could gain from other people. So it's
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 3: not that we're born social, it's that we're a trading animal.
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 3: We trade constantly. Right from the beginning of time, we
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 3: were treated. And it's not only that we trading material things,
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 3: we treated spiritual values constantly. So when I have social being,
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 3: we are trading being. Definitely.
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 2: We're constantly learning, yeah, constantly learning and adapting.
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 2: I remember the first time I fell in love. I
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 2: thought it was forever. I was, like, you know, twelve
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 2: years old. She told me she loved me. I said,
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 2: I love you, I love you, I love you, I
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 2: love you, and I thought that's it. And then like
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 2: three months later she was dating my best friend, and
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 2: then you know, the next one came and I've learned
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 2: a little bit, and she said I love you, and
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 2: I would wait to live it. I love you too.
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 2: By the third one, when she said I love you,
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 2: I made like I didn't hear it, you know, so
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't have to say I love you and you know,
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 2: it took time until I found the right one that
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 2: I really loved and said I loved and et cetera.
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 2: But it's it's not ticking boxes. It's not it's laugh
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 2: it's laughing and you're going to make mistakes, but they're
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 2: part of the learning curve.
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 10: After the thank you, thank you all. Thank you also
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 10: Noon and the entire team for this opportunity and greet
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 10: our distinguished guests and Maria for this moderation. And I
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 10: would like to ask you about going back to the
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 10: to the veils and more in this specific way, to
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 10: the Christian values. Let's say like this, I would like
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 10: to give you an example of the past and to
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 10: give you a little context. This this is this is
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 10: about the the capacity of pressure of the institutions. Like
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 10: in this way the church institutions to to to put
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 10: pressure to conditionate good and positive or negative way in
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 10: this world scenario. And for example, when for example, Pope
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 10: John Paul the Second, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Toucher have
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 10: joined together to to solve between themselves the fight against
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 10: the Communist the Catholic the Catholic Church had power and
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 10: as we say, as we as we know and in
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 10: Portuguese in purchased context, the magistrates or of influence to
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 10: contribute to this, to this battle. Do you think that
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 10: nowadays the problem is right the opposition and let me
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 10: be more clear, do you do you think that the
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 10: absence of the capacity of the Catholic Church and the
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 10: Christian values in general to put more pressure to solve
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 10: the problems? This is about the crisis of the institutions
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 10: of or the crisis of the valleys? Thinking what as
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 10: you said, all the questions of the values did in
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 10: the in the in in conclusions, to be more, to
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 10: be more direct, if this is more about a crisis
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 10: in general, in crisis of the institutions or the crisis
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 10: of the values in general, I thank you.
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 3: I mean, look, I have a very negative view of
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 3: the Catholic Church and its role in history. I think
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 3: it's been much more responsible for bad things than it
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 3: has been for good things. John Paul the Second and
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 3: his opposition to capital communism was one of the better
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 3: things that happened. But you know, at the end of
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 3: the day, but after a long string of very very
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 3: very very bad things that the Catholic Church was responsible for,
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 3: including maybe even inventing communism, and I think to a
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 3: large extent, call Marks really is secularized, secularizers Catholicism to
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 3: a loge extent, he gains his values from them. So,
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 3: you know, the crisis ultimately is a crisis of values,
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 3: you know, And as a consequence, you get a crisis
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 3: of institutions. And only our institutions have failed. And you
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 3: talk about the Catholic Church, I think it's always failed
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 3: in a deep sense. But but look at our universities,
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 3: look at our political institutions. Uh, you know, institution after
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 3: institution after institution, you're seeing us failing today. We've got
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 3: real crises. You've got a crisis in Brussels. You've got
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 3: a crisis with certain elements on the right rising and
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 3: certain elements on the left rising. These are all crises
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 3: of institutions. But what's the core. When institutions gain their values,
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 3: they gain them from the values of individuals. And the
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 3: real crisis is a crisis of values. The institutions are
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 3: just reflecting that back to us. I mean, our university
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 3: is are dominated by postmodernism. They have adopted those values
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 3: and now they're teaching crap to our you know, to
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 3: to students. As a consequence of that, and they're failing us.
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 3: They're failing us as citizens, as parents, as individuals, as students.
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 3: But I think it's across the board. Institutions have gone bad.
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 4: Well, if I can, she had something, I think the
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 4: dilemma she was fushed. I think we're facing another dilemma because,
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 4: as Janin said, our institutions represent our values derived from
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 4: our values. The values are building blocks of the institutions.
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 4: They should represent those values as faithfully as possible. So
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 4: when the institutions are failing, it's probably because something much
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 4: meaningful is failing before, which is the values. And what
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 4: we see right now at the world stage is that
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 4: we are seeing a regress from the idea of and
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 4: you mentioned that of power through influence. Right, what in
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 4: the international relations they call the soft power, Right, it's
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 4: not hard power. In the past, we would wage war
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 4: if we wanted to get our voices heard. We just
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 4: invade countries, kill people, and that was it. That's how
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 4: things work. The stronger would prevail now since at least
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 4: Second World War, things have shifted. The idea of the
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 4: international liberal order rests on this idea that power can
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 4: be exerted in different ways, including through influence, through soft power.
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 4: What we are seeing now, at least in the last
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 4: couple of years, is we are regressing to this idea
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 4: that power is done through capacity, which is a very
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 4: nicche idea of the will to power of getting things
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 4: done through your own way. And so now you have
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 4: blocks world blocks that try to gain as much power
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 4: as possible. And by power here I mean not only
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 4: economic power, but also military might, military power, and use
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 4: that to do whatever is in their best interest, because
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 4: in the end, that's what nations do. They do what
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 4: is in their best interest. And so that's what we're
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 4: facing right now. And that's not only an issue with
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 4: the left wing. That also comes from the right wing.
• 1:39:13
  Speaker 4: We have a lot of people on the right wing,
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 4: most extreme more to the right, that defend this idea
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 4: that in the end is the stronger that should rain
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 4: somehow and should decide what works and what doesn't. And
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 4: of course Trump is also a part of that equation,
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 4: is also responsible for this idea. It truly believes in that,
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 4: It truly believes that the my year should decide how
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 4: things work and the others should a buide. And I
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 4: think that definitely puts not only our institutions in a
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 4: very sensible situation. But it's deepening, it's deeply changing our
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 4: values as well, because now we see people agreeing with this,
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 4: with the state of affairs, with this idea that yes,
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 4: should decide whatever works and should prevail, and that's the
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 4: way it is just accepted. And that's not definitely it's
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 4: not a good thing.
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 2: Hello.
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 11: So my name is Almy and at the start of
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 11: this session it was said that we all are influenced
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 11: by philosophers, even if we are not aware of texts.
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 11: And I will bring a controversial topic, which is the
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 11: similarities between nihilism and objectivism, because nihilism was as niche
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 11: is unfortunately misquoted presented as the lack of values. However,
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 11: either in God Is Dead book or but especially in
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 11: those spokes, Zaratuska needs explores the importance of values to
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 11: face existentialism, even created the famous Govenment superman concept. How
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 11: far away can that be from the work of Rant
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 11: that comes after Nichs on the eros she created in
• 1:40:59
  Speaker 11: their book to show the rational men and importance of
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 11: velus and exploration of those values.
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 3: So ran it it rejects Nietzsche and and you know
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 3: she she views as one of the bad guys in
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 3: the history of philosophy, because you're right, Nietzsche in the end, uh,
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 3: you know, creates a separate category of certain men, right
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 3: uber men who who who go beyond right, who are
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 3: above morale, convention, the morale, and moral moral. But Rand says,
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 3: and and for Nietzsche everything is about the will. Nietzsche
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 3: has no place for reason. Reason does not play a
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 3: big role in in nich And for Rand, of course,
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 3: all our values should come from reason.
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 6: Uh.
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 3: And there's nothing nihilistic about Ranch's about building, creating, valuing,
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 3: but making sure that their values, the things we are creating,
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 3: are based on reason, based on rational, rational thought, that
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 3: our values of values that are connected to our life,
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 3: to connect it to our our need to thrive in
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 3: flowries and survive. So while there is a certain esthetic
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 3: and emotional similarity between Random and nietzure there is none
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 3: when it comes to the basic philosphy. They both reject Christianity,
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 3: they both reject God, they both reject the values of
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 3: the Christian values. But Iman actually offers something to replace them,
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 3: something solid, grounded in the nature of man, whereas Nietzsche
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 3: fails to do that.
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 1: We have a question from the audience online. Two questions actually,
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 1: one for Tim asking if Tim can share how philosophy
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 1: helped him achieve his goals be successful in live. You
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 1: know he's tried. He said that he tried a lot
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 1: a lot of companies and some fails and some others succeeded.
• 1:43:07
  Speaker 1: So if you can share your experiences and how what's
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 1: your way of thinking, your approach, how you deal.
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 2: With I think what it did it helped me think,
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 2: it helped me become more open minded. You know, I'll
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 2: post a verse from the Bible like our post rand
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 2: I can get the best out of both worlds. You
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 2: know how lucky I am. You can't do that, you see,
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 2: so open mindedness and in this world today, being open
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 2: minded is a superpower, okay. And that's the thing. I
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 2: get to look and think and take some ideas and
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 2: understand what those mean to me, and it's personal, and
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 2: you know, I don't push them onto others. That is
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 2: what it is. So I think that's what's helped me
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 2: a lot. You know, Like today, if I get a
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 2: LinkedIn message and it's a funny name and all that,
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 2: I will look at it. I will think about it.
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 2: I'll say, how do I answer it? Because I've come
• 1:44:08
  Speaker 2: across so many times that I've answered a funny name
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 2: and it's become a friend or or it's been value.
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 2: Do you understand what I'm saying? And I've got other
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 2: friends who will never answer anything from that side or
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 2: that side. You know, I've got friends on both sides.
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 2: I'm one of the lucky ones, were blessed ones. Okay,
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 2: So that's it. I think that's what it does. And
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 2: I think, you know, for me when you know Marcus
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 2: Aurelius and things like that, because there's value, there's strength,
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 2: there's belief. You know what I'm saying, It makes me
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 2: stronger when I read it. Why not I don't have
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 2: to only read the Bible. I can, you know, read
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 2: other things that make me strong as well. So I
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 2: think that's my answer there, you know. And sometimes I
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 2: even like to not read anyone and I just want
• 1:44:55
  Speaker 2: to be bored and think, because that's what's underrated, you know.
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for your answer. We have another
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 1: question specifically for Mario here. Philosophy and complex ideas are
• 1:45:08
  Speaker 1: becoming more and more absent from public discourse, especially in
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 1: public policy and exchanged for more purely utilitarian approaches or
• 1:45:16
  Speaker 1: very simplified ideological slogans. What do you think is the
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 1: impact of this for the long term in our societies?
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 1: And how can we make ideas great again?
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 4: So that's actually a very good question, and I fully
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 4: agree in most public policy decisions, the typical approach framework
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 4: for deciding the venue the way we should go is
• 1:45:39
  Speaker 4: how can we maximize the welfare? That's actually the economical approach, right,
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 4: we try to maximize the welfare of the consumers of
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 4: the producers of the society. That's a very ttilitarian approach.
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 4: And actually some liberal thinkings had some responsibility on that,
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 4: not only John Stuart Mill but Bentham as well. They
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 4: were the one responsible for this idea of utilitarianism. Now,
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 4: I think it does have some merits in some circumstances.
• 1:46:09
  Speaker 4: So we should not throw the baby with the baby,
• 1:46:11
  Speaker 4: water with the water. I think that it is a
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 4: framework for in certain circumstances you need to allocate a budget, right,
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 4: you need to decide where the money goes. That's as
• 1:46:24
  Speaker 4: good as any other approach for deciding what to do
• 1:46:26
  Speaker 4: in terms of public policy. Now, where I think this
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 4: does not serve us well is when our positions of
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 4: principle are put into questions in other types of decisions
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 4: that we need to make. In that case, it can
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 4: be utilitarian. Right, let's not do because otherwise that opens
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 4: the way for trying to decide the thing that will
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 4: please most people so that then you can get votes.
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 4: So it does have a bad consequence if you then
• 1:46:59
  Speaker 4: decide on whatever will most people like, and therefore that
• 1:47:04
  Speaker 4: will be good for me because I'm a politician. I
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 4: need to get elected so I want people to be happy.
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 4: Then we will have a big, big issue because we
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 4: won't make the right decisions, but the decisions that more
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 4: people think are right, and not all the times those
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 4: decisions or those positions just to pose right. Sometimes it
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 4: is not the collective decision or the majoritory. The decision
• 1:47:34
  Speaker 4: is not the best decision, and therefore in those circumstances
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 4: we should definitely stick to our values, to our positions
• 1:47:43
  Speaker 4: of principle, and use that to the side. So I
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 4: mean just wrap up out say that I think there's
• 1:47:52
  Speaker 4: place for both, but in some important issues we should
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 4: definitely stick with positions of principal premium fast see and
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 4: and avoid utilitarian approaches.
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 3: Let me just absolutely, I don't think it's the job
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 3: of politicians to make ideas great again. It's not their job.
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 3: And and and they are too sensitive to the fact
• 1:48:15
  Speaker 3: to the voters, I mean they they need to get elected.
• 1:48:19
  Speaker 3: I think it's the responsibility of the intellectuals primarily and
• 1:48:24
  Speaker 3: the responsibility ultimately of the people uh to make ideas
• 1:48:28
  Speaker 3: great again politicians. In the end, we get the politicians
• 1:48:31
  Speaker 3: we deserve and we do. You know, the culture moves
• 1:48:36
  Speaker 3: in a particular direction and the politicians move with it.
• 1:48:40
  Speaker 3: It's rare that a politician leads us into a new frontier.
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 3: I don't I don't know that that's ever happened. Maybe
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 3: Thatcher in England. Maybe. Usually there's a lot of intellectual
• 1:48:51
  Speaker 3: groundwork that that goes into a new political figure coming
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 3: in and reshaping things. But it's that intellectual groundwork that
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 3: each to happen in order to make ideas great again.
• 1:49:03
  Speaker 3: You can't expect politicians out of nowhere to suddenly become
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 3: principled and in our case pro free markets or whatever.
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 3: It's not going to happen until the intellectual landscape changes dramatically.
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 2: And then should be executing and judged on that. Because
• 1:49:18
  Speaker 2: they don't actally there's no kprs. There's no nothing. You
• 1:49:21
  Speaker 2: mentioned thatcher. I received a prize where I got this
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 2: big painting of thatcher trained to this university and then
• 1:49:29
  Speaker 2: I had to come back on the train and I
• 1:49:30
  Speaker 2: was carrying thatcher and then I decided I'm going to
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 2: carry it that everybody can see. Yeah, there was comments,
• 1:49:38
  Speaker 2: good and bad, but there were comments, and I was
• 1:49:41
  Speaker 2: that was amazing, okay, And I thought that was amazing.
• 1:49:44
  Speaker 2: I thought, at least everybody she stood by principles, she
• 1:49:48
  Speaker 2: lived by principles. I think she wasn't maybe happy, but
• 1:49:52
  Speaker 2: she was joyful in making those things happen more than
• 1:49:55
  Speaker 2: you know. So I think it was It was amazing
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 2: to see that. And how many people can with say
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 2: that about today's world?
• 1:50:01
  Speaker 3: Very few? True. True.
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 1: There's another of emulatee. There's another online question. If happiness
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 1: is represented differently for everyone and even varies for each
• 1:50:12
  Speaker 1: person throughout life, how can we define the criteria and
• 1:50:16
  Speaker 1: is it even possible?
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 3: No, I don't think happiness is impossible. I think happiness
• 1:50:21
  Speaker 3: is attainable. It is it is a consequence of achieving
• 1:50:25
  Speaker 3: your life affirming rational values. When you achieve life affirming
• 1:50:29
  Speaker 3: rational values and you achieve them, and you and you
• 1:50:32
  Speaker 3: build on that, and you recognize that fact that you've
• 1:50:35
  Speaker 3: achieved them, and you're constantly building towards greater and greater
• 1:50:39
  Speaker 3: life affirming rational values, you will achieve happiness. I think
• 1:50:43
  Speaker 3: when you achieve values that are not life affirming, or
• 1:50:47
  Speaker 3: when they're not rational, I think that's when you falter
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 3: from happiness. But again, this huge optionality, right, we can
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 3: you know, all of us are going to have different values,
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 3: but in terms of the concrete but they all have
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 3: to fall into this wider category of rational life affirming.
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And maybe the word happiness is the wrong wrong word.
• 1:51:10
  Speaker 2: I think maybe replace it with content. You know, sometimes
• 1:51:13
  Speaker 2: it should be content. Although we had where we are,
• 1:51:15
  Speaker 2: where we're going, and happiness it's very short lived.
• 1:51:21
  Speaker 3: That's what I actually think. Happiness is long lived and
• 1:51:23
  Speaker 3: it's ambitious, and you should be ambitious.
• 1:51:25
  Speaker 2: That's what's called the happy ending.
• 1:51:29
  Speaker 1: We have time for one more question if anyone wants
• 1:51:31
  Speaker 1: to ask our panel.
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah, Hi, sim how do you sorry, how do you
• 1:51:40
  Speaker 4: approach teaching philosophy at Breath Generation Academy to kids?
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 1:51:45
  Speaker 2: You know, what we do is we actually teach them
• 1:51:48
  Speaker 2: more thinking and then they will start finding things. They
• 1:51:51
  Speaker 2: find such amazing books and they start following people. You know,
• 1:51:54
  Speaker 2: we can't do it all, you know, but we can
• 1:51:57
  Speaker 2: definitely get them onto paths and let them go. And
• 1:52:00
  Speaker 2: our path is a weird path, you know, like people
• 1:52:01
  Speaker 2: think BJ is like you know, you go like this,
• 1:52:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah you don't, you go like this, and if you're
• 1:52:06
  Speaker 2: hanging there, but then you start finding your path, you understand.
• 1:52:10
  Speaker 2: And everybody today wants a road like it's that way,
• 1:52:13
  Speaker 2: you understand what I'm saying, And it's not. It's nice.
• 1:52:16
  Speaker 2: And because we all want that road, we you know,
• 1:52:19
  Speaker 2: unhappy or we're uncontent and we've got issues and then
• 1:52:23
  Speaker 2: we you know, the only thing I can say about WJ.
• 1:52:26
  Speaker 2: What we try to do is we try not to
• 1:52:28
  Speaker 2: work so much on the learner, on the young person.
• 1:52:32
  Speaker 2: We try to change the system that then allows them
• 1:52:34
  Speaker 2: to work for themselves, okay. And that's the problem is
• 1:52:37
  Speaker 2: that we focus a lot on people at the moment,
• 1:52:39
  Speaker 2: like you unhappy because of this, you unhappy. But sometimes
• 1:52:42
  Speaker 2: if you focus on the system, they allsought themselves out,
• 1:52:44
  Speaker 2: you know. So that's what we try to do.
• 1:52:46
  Speaker 3: And I think most of education should be about thinking,
• 1:52:52
  Speaker 3: and you know, philosophy as a topic is I don't
• 1:52:56
  Speaker 3: think you can teach it to anybody under sixteen, right,
• 1:52:59
  Speaker 3: I mean as a topic because it requires real conceptual thinking,
• 1:53:03
  Speaker 3: and that conceptual ability doesn't really develop until you're late teens.
• 1:53:07
  Speaker 3: So if you teach people how to think properly, then
• 1:53:10
  Speaker 3: once they encounter philosophy later in life or you know,
• 1:53:14
  Speaker 3: in their late teens or early twenties, then there'll be
• 1:53:16
  Speaker 3: much they'll be able to engage with it. The challenges
• 1:53:19
  Speaker 3: that our educational institutions don't teach how to think, They
• 1:53:24
  Speaker 3: don't teach the skill of thinking.
• 1:53:26
  Speaker 2: And we do push them into experiences because experiences make
• 1:53:30
  Speaker 2: you think, how do you do this? You meet people, yeah,
• 1:53:33
  Speaker 2: your opinions, you know, and we're in a world now
• 1:53:37
  Speaker 2: where you actually need to maybe ask questions, not answer them,
• 1:53:42
  Speaker 2: you know. But no one's thinking of how to teach
• 1:53:44
  Speaker 2: kids how to answer the right question, ask the right questions.
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 2: We keep telling them and grading them on how they
• 1:53:49
  Speaker 2: answer a question that you could on your phone. You
• 1:53:52
  Speaker 2: could get everything wrong, but that's what that's how we
• 1:53:56
  Speaker 2: say they're clever and they've got a future, you know.
• 1:53:59
  Speaker 2: But yeah, and it's hard. It's very hard because there's
• 1:54:02
  Speaker 2: this like education at the moment, it's so far beyond
• 1:54:05
  Speaker 2: society and beyond our needs. And you know, and it
• 1:54:10
  Speaker 2: needs everyone to get involved. It needs parents, it needs
• 1:54:13
  Speaker 2: the community, it needs businesses, it needs everyone to start asking.
• 1:54:18
  Speaker 2: You know that there needs to be a change because
• 1:54:20
  Speaker 2: otherwise we're just going to keep getting the same thing.
• 1:54:23
  Speaker 2: We get the same thing, we get the same votes,
• 1:54:25
  Speaker 2: we get the same votes, we get the government we deserve.
• 1:54:28
  Speaker 2: And it's a fuckle you know. So until we start
• 1:54:30
  Speaker 2: breaking this, it's it should be mission critical. It really
• 1:54:35
  Speaker 2: should be mission critical.
• 1:54:37
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much everyone for being here. We're gonna
• 1:54:41
  Speaker 1: end on this note. Thank you in a very positive note.
• 1:54:45
  Speaker 1: Don't forget you have the flyers with a QR code.
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 1: You can stand them and apply for a scholarship at
• 1:54:50
  Speaker 1: iron Rand Institute. And thank you so much the panel
• 1:54:54
  Speaker 1: for being here. Mario team you're on. Thank you so much.
• 1:54:57
  Speaker 4: Let you decision.
• 1:54:58
  Speaker 1: Thank you figure so level, think think think nothing and
• 1:55:03
  Speaker 1: ye