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Conversation with Tara Smith, Valuing Other People | Yaron Brook Show · Yaron Brook Show

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: A lot of funded the metals of Ledo, my interest
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: and an individual lots. This is the show. All right, everybody,
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: welcome to your one book show on this Monday, Fary,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: February twenty third. I am really excited to have Tara
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Smith with me today. This is this is gonna be fun.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: We've also got a I think a fun topic to
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  Speaker 1: talk about. Uh So, welcome Tara. Thanks, thanks for joining me,
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  Speaker 1: thanks for having me excellent. So, a few weeks ago,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: I think it was a few weeks ago, we I
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  Speaker 1: participate in a in a seminar in Austin and terror
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  Speaker 1: put together on valuing others. And of course this is
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  Speaker 1: a question that comes up in objectivism because we're all
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  Speaker 1: supposed to be selfish and how do how you know,
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  Speaker 1: why should a selfish person value other people? What's what's infamy?
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  Speaker 2: They have so much to give?
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  Speaker 3: I mean yeah, so, I mean other people great source
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  Speaker 3: of value in most of our lives, tremendous source of
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  Speaker 3: value other people in principle, not obviously not everybody. You know,
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  Speaker 3: they're idiots. There are destructive people. There are you know,
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  Speaker 3: they are all sorts of people, but human beings. Add
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  Speaker 3: I mean typically add tremendously to the kinds of lives
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  Speaker 3: that we lead. I mean, just being realistic. Think about
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  Speaker 3: your day to day life. Think about your friends. You know,
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  Speaker 3: a certain friends, you know, I mean they're all tears
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  Speaker 3: of friends. Think about your lover or your spouse, or
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  Speaker 3: you know, your children, if you have children. I mean,
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  Speaker 3: and I mean just think about those kinds of people.
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  Speaker 3: Think about the people who've done all the thing. I mean,
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  Speaker 3: there's it's almost too obvious to talk about the great
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  Speaker 3: value that we get out of I can talk to
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  Speaker 3: you now because some people figured out how to have
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  Speaker 3: this Internet thing, you know, like you were able to
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  Speaker 3: be here in Austin a few weeks ago and then
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  Speaker 3: go on to god knows where in your case, you know,
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  Speaker 3: because of these fabulous things that we take for granted
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  Speaker 3: that are all.
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  Speaker 2: Coming from other people.
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  Speaker 3: And I mean obviously, I mean I ran knew this
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  Speaker 3: that ideally you live in a certain kind of community
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  Speaker 3: with others, where you're respecting each person's you know, lead
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  Speaker 3: your own life, make your own choices and all of that.
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  Speaker 3: But we can do that so much more profitably and
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  Speaker 3: enjoyably when we tap into oh that guy, he you know,
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  Speaker 3: he wrote that really clever essay or he told that
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  Speaker 3: great joke, you know, if I just want to go
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  Speaker 3: to the comedy club or whatever it might be.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, even in the grocery store, right, I mean there's
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  Speaker 1: I mean the people who stack up all the stuff
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  Speaker 1: from the grocery store, people.
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  Speaker 3: Who stack up the stuff, let alone the chefs who
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  Speaker 3: come up with the oh that is the perfect pesto
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  Speaker 3: or whatever it might be. And I mean, was it
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  Speaker 3: just going to say, I mean, there are It's a
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  Speaker 3: relatively I think, relatively under explored area within objectivism. I mean,
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  Speaker 3: obviously we talk about the virtue of justice. How do
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  Speaker 3: you deal with other people? You know, how do you
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  Speaker 3: judge other people? How should you treat other people? We
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  Speaker 3: talk about justice, we talk about individual rights. There's been
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  Speaker 3: some writing among objectivist scholars about friendship over the years.
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  Speaker 3: I've written some on that. Tristende Lege lately is writing
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  Speaker 3: on that. You know, there are pockets of again, I
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  Speaker 3: think you know, ein Ran gives a lot of attention
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  Speaker 3: to justice in particular and rights, but then beyond that
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  Speaker 3: there are these sporadic engagements. And I just thought it
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  Speaker 3: was something that because it's such a like a major
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  Speaker 3: dimension of all of our lives, how we deal with
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  Speaker 3: other people, strangers, family, the regulars in our lives at
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  Speaker 3: the office or at school or wherever it might be
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  Speaker 3: that it would be worth looking into a little bit
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  Speaker 3: more some of what should play out egoistically in these relationships.
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  Speaker 2: So it was fun.
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  Speaker 3: You were there, a few others from out of town
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  Speaker 3: on care and along we're there, Greg and Gina and.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's always it's always great to get different
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  Speaker 1: people's perspectives. And we had a psychologists there, we had philosophers. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: and there's always something new and different that comes out of.
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  Speaker 3: It and things that you don't expect. I always find like, oh,
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  Speaker 3: I think this session will go this you know this topic. Yeah, yeah,
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  Speaker 3: and then you know, and I know now not to
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  Speaker 3: you know, to expect the unexpected. But then there's still
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  Speaker 3: some angle that somebody raises like, oh, I never would
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  Speaker 3: have thought of it that way. But and sometimes you know,
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  Speaker 3: even at the end of the discussion, you don't know
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  Speaker 3: why they're coming out it that way, but it sounds, oh, okay,
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  Speaker 3: I see how you're thinking of this, and maybe there
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  Speaker 3: is something to that, because we know there's certainly a
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  Speaker 3: you know, a fair amount of disagreement, especially in the beginning,
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  Speaker 3: but not not only at the beginning, at some of
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  Speaker 3: these aspects of it all that way, Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: No, absolutely, So yeah, the people, you know, the people
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  Speaker 1: that are obviously it's obvious that they provide us with
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  Speaker 1: the direct value, like you know, like the people who
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  Speaker 1: are friends and lovers, and people who work in the
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  Speaker 1: stores that we go to, in the chefs and all that.
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  Speaker 1: But then you know, what about things like charity and philanthropy.
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  Speaker 1: We talked about that during one of the sessions where
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  Speaker 1: it's strangers.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, so so first I guess we could talk
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  Speaker 3: a little bit about philanthropy and charity. I mean, do
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  Speaker 3: you value humankind in a way like love, philanthropy, love
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  Speaker 3: of man, love of mankind. Well, I'm rand loved mankind. Right,
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  Speaker 3: she didn't love every son of a gun, but right,
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  Speaker 3: I mean she and she It would precisely if one
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  Speaker 3: loves that, one can detest certain people and what they do, Okay,
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  Speaker 3: But it's if you're a valuer and you're aware of
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  Speaker 3: the tremendous value that human beings bring to one another's
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  Speaker 3: lives lives, then I think it's natural to be philanthropic
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  Speaker 3: and charitable. Not at all in a self sacrificial way, obviously,
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  Speaker 3: you know, I mean, I think obvious to any semi
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  Speaker 3: literate objectivists, right like you, not in a self sacrificial way.
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  Speaker 2: Not just to placate others.
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  Speaker 3: But if you really value you know, you have the resources,
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  Speaker 3: you have some discretionary income to share with others who
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  Speaker 3: you value. And sometimes it is strangers. It's those people
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  Speaker 3: who have the horrible misfortune of being in the throes
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  Speaker 3: of the hurricanes path or something like that right now. Again,
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  Speaker 3: it's different if you know that somebody set him up,
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  Speaker 3: set himself up to be in this bad, homeless shape
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  Speaker 3: or something like. But bad things happen to good people
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  Speaker 3: through no fault of their own. As a way of
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  Speaker 3: contributing to a kind of world in which you want
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  Speaker 3: to live, alleviating.
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  Speaker 2: Some suffering, it seems to me perfectly fine.
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  Speaker 3: Again, you've got to be honest about where does this
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  Speaker 3: person of this money stack up in my scheme of
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  Speaker 3: values right now? But I mean you actually learn some
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  Speaker 3: of the discussion on that.
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  Speaker 1: On that one, I mean, I worry you with a
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  Speaker 1: lot of philanthropy and charity today in kind of the
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  Speaker 1: world in which we live. Were so there's so much
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  Speaker 1: altruism everywhere, and it's so hard even for objectivists to
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  Speaker 1: rid themselves of the absolutely that that could be rationalization.
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  Speaker 1: You know, you could be rationalizing what you're doing rather
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  Speaker 1: than doing out of a real sense of valuing.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. Oh no, definitely.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, sadly, I think altruism has you know, we're
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  Speaker 3: so soaked in a culture of altruism and have been
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  Speaker 3: for centuries that it really distorts our outlook on other
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  Speaker 3: people in all sorts of ways, including charity and so on.
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  Speaker 3: And people are guilted into giving, you know, they you know,
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  Speaker 3: there's that collection at the office every fall for United Way.
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  Speaker 3: And are you going to be the person who says, no, look,
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  Speaker 3: yes I am, but I mean you but and yeah,
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  Speaker 3: a lot of people will give but kind of rationalize
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  Speaker 3: how it's really selfish when it isn't, when it's really
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  Speaker 3: simply to placate other people or something like that. No,
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  Speaker 3: So I think also it's an area not just charity,
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  Speaker 3: but more generally where we we have some unresolved conflicts
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  Speaker 3: often like well, I kind of feel this obligation to
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  Speaker 3: my family, or I kind of feel this obligation to
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  Speaker 3: open my wallet even though but wait, I have been
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  Speaker 3: saving diligently because I want to start this business, enterprise
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  Speaker 3: or whatever it is. Well, no, in those cases, you
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  Speaker 3: shouldn't give to the charity if you you know, if
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  Speaker 3: there is something you value more. But I think you're
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  Speaker 3: right that things are skewed by altruistic expectations and you
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  Speaker 3: know you've got to give back and all that kind
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  Speaker 3: of understand.
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  Speaker 1: And guilt people Harry guilt with him, even people who
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  Speaker 1: who should know better.
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  Speaker 3: Right. No, And I mean that's like altruism even after
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  Speaker 3: you own you read I Rand and you agree with
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  Speaker 3: iron Rand, the tentacles of altruism. I mean, this is
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  Speaker 3: what my last ethics book was about, like egoism without permission,
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  Speaker 3: because there's a psychological hangover. There's the emotional sort of
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  Speaker 3: clinging of those assumptions that you really have to uproots
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  Speaker 3: so that you know why you're doing things to make
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  Speaker 3: sure you're being honest with yourself about how much you
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  Speaker 3: do value something. You also want to look generous to
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  Speaker 3: other people. I think sometimes so it's not I mean,
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  Speaker 3: it's related to the placating others, but you want to
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  Speaker 3: maintain a certain image rather than explain yourself as to
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  Speaker 3: why you're not giving or something like that. One thing
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  Speaker 3: we talked about in that session you're on was people
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  Speaker 3: talk about the helping professions. Yeah, you know, like, well,
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  Speaker 3: is it okay to be a social worker or a
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  Speaker 3: therapist of some sort? And you know, exactly what qualifies
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  Speaker 3: as a helping profession is sometimes murky, but people often
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  Speaker 3: have the objectivists might have the question is it okay
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  Speaker 3: to work in helping professions? And as you recall, like
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  Speaker 3: one of the things we talked about is if you're
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  Speaker 3: doing legitimate work, like if you're creating a valuable good
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  Speaker 3: or service, you're helping people, right, Like that.
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  Speaker 1: Is all professions are helping professions, all productive professions.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, you're cleaning the streets, you're you know,
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  Speaker 3: fixing my car.
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  Speaker 2: You're like, that's a helping profession.
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  Speaker 3: I mean people trade because they're helping one another in
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  Speaker 3: various ways, right because.
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  Speaker 1: They're Yeah, and people think about you know, social workers,
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  Speaker 1: there's something not quite right there, But then doctors that's okay.
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  Speaker 1: And and why I mean if somebody takes their social
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  Speaker 1: work properly seriously and they study and they think about it,
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  Speaker 1: and they they really dedicated to helping somebody ins.
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  Speaker 3: And there's like a problem solving aspect that they enjoy, right,
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  Speaker 3: I mean in any profession, being a philosopher, being a publican,
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  Speaker 3: in any profession. You know, the motivations of a given
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  Speaker 3: individual could be healthier or not right the given so
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  Speaker 3: the given nurse or doctor you know, might be motivated
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  Speaker 3: by bad reasons or good But there's yeah, it's an
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  Speaker 3: odd designation again, but altruism spawns these bogus concepts or misleading.
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  Speaker 3: It's like, well, not in helping professions really, then then
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  Speaker 3: I guess you're you know, bankrupt or something because nobody's
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  Speaker 3: paying you to do what you do to make what
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  Speaker 3: you make.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean one of the one of the things
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  Speaker 1: I find with new objectivists and is they they it
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  Speaker 1: needs to be emphasized to them how much thinking needs
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  Speaker 1: to be done in terms of higher Q values and
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  Speaker 1: really figuring out what is important to you and then
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  Speaker 1: and being selfish means going after that, really pursuing that.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, and no, and knowing at all And it's not
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  Speaker 3: you know, it's not you assign numbers to the different
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  Speaker 3: I mean like three point two, five point six, but
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  Speaker 3: you do have to and it can change over time.
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  Speaker 3: You have to be very self aware of what matters
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  Speaker 3: to you and and does that make sense that it
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  Speaker 3: should matter to me that this much, you know, this
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  Speaker 3: relationship or doing this kind of work, or living in
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  Speaker 3: this country or part of the country, like different things
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  Speaker 3: all together compose what your life is like. So you've
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  Speaker 3: got to be paying close attention to what you really value.
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  Speaker 3: And yet it's it does require a lot of thinking.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, particular I think, particularly given the altruism in
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  Speaker 1: the background, you have to really think it's through.
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  Speaker 3: It's easy to just slide into that as the default,
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  Speaker 3: you know, like it spares me the thinking, well everybody
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  Speaker 3: else is doing this. Yeah, and it's not that you
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  Speaker 3: consciously think everybody else is doing this. You know, as
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  Speaker 3: an objectivist you know not to think that, but subconsciously
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  Speaker 3: that can still play a role. Like well, and that's
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  Speaker 3: why I said, I think we have to confront some
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  Speaker 3: of these questions and you know, think through resolve the
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  Speaker 3: discrepancies in some of our relationships with others.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and really, and I think when you do that,
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  Speaker 1: the up unity to the positive relationships become more positive
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  Speaker 1: because now you know where you have them. Yeah, values are.
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  Speaker 3: Calling attention to the value I mean, it's it's the
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  Speaker 3: upside of justice that I've always loved celebrating the good
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  Speaker 3: and just appreciating this is a really great thing about
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  Speaker 3: this person or that this person has done. It just
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  Speaker 3: shines a light on values, which sort of creates a
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  Speaker 3: greater positive atmosphere in your life of how much there
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  Speaker 3: is to value, because there is so much that people do.
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  Speaker 3: And you know, one of the things that got me
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  Speaker 3: interested in the whole subject really is observing what I
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  Speaker 3: think is people taking each other for granted, like the
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  Speaker 3: people who you know well, who are in your inner orbits,
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: let's say, not just you know, your closest friends, but
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  Speaker 3: some of the other kind of regulars in your life.
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  Speaker 3: I see a lot now, obviously, like I'm observing, and
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  Speaker 3: I could be wrong, and I know people have different
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  Speaker 3: ways expressing things and all, but I see a lot
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  Speaker 3: of behavior that just seems to me like people aren't
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  Speaker 3: sufficiently appreciative. And it's not like I'm asking for a
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: lot to show your appreciation or something, but of how
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  Speaker 3: their actions affect others, how they're coming in and dominating
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  Speaker 3: the conversation is inconsiderate of others, how they're missing those
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  Speaker 3: deadlines they promise to make is inconveniencing up? Like whoa
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  Speaker 3: do you value this person really in your actions? Not Oh,
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  Speaker 3: of course he's my friend or I love him and
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  Speaker 3: I'm really you know, we're nice when we're to get okay,
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  Speaker 3: But are you acting like that behind the scenes in doing.
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  Speaker 2: Some of these other things?
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  Speaker 3: And that, you know, I think it's what do you do?
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  Speaker 3: If you really value somebody? What do you do to
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  Speaker 3: show it?
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: And that's an as suggest week it.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: Was Valentine's Day?
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  Speaker 3: But I mean, like, ooh, are there ways? And I
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  Speaker 3: think it's helpful too to think about times that you
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: self have felt oh slighted or underappreciated or over like,
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: think about those times when you've been on the receiving end,
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: or at least it seemed to you, like, so what
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: was going on there? You know, maybe maybe your feeling
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: wasn't valid in a given like but was that valid
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  Speaker 3: and why? And what is it? Oh? So maybe I
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  Speaker 3: could learn from that about Oh yeah, I should be
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  Speaker 3: sure to not do that to the people I care
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: about or you know, and you know, with the people
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  Speaker 3: who are most familiar. It's easiest, I think to get
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  Speaker 3: lazy or to just fall into the grooves and you know,
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: I don't know you.
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  Speaker 2: You look like you're thinking that's good.
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  Speaker 1: No, I think that's right. I think I think the
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: closer somebody is, the more usually the more rare it
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: is to see somebody, the more you think about that
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: particular meeting. And when when it's somebody you're seeing on
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: a regular basis, yeah, it's it's easy to take them
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  Speaker 1: for granted.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. And I think too sometimes, like with strangers
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  Speaker 3: or in a formal relationship, formal business meeting, you sort
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  Speaker 3: of not to beyond your guard to like Okay, I've
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: got to be got to be just you know, I've
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: got to be objective and everything, and that can just
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: slide from familiarity in a way that I think it
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: can be helpful to call you know, call one's attention
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  Speaker 3: to it's like, okay, am I really being fair to
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  Speaker 3: her here?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, one of the areas that we talked about
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  Speaker 1: that we're I think it's tricky again also because of
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  Speaker 1: kind of the altruism, because of the cultural pressures, is
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: relationship with family, with parents. Let's say, there's there's a
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  Speaker 1: certain view that you have to have a particular commitment,
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: but there's you know, but we also if parents were
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  Speaker 1: good to you, there is a sense of appreciation and
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  Speaker 1: love and to them, and it's it's tricky to navigate.
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  Speaker 3: It is tricky because it's so I mean, and here
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  Speaker 3: it's altruism coupled with or maybe like the potentially well
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: the bad influence of altruism that's always gonna have influences.
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  Speaker 3: But then how that can distort one's attitudes, you know,
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  Speaker 3: as an adult, toward one's inherited family, siblings, parents, right
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  Speaker 3: the bit it's like you didn't choose, like you choose
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  Speaker 3: to have a child, You didn't choose your parents or
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: your siblings or cousins and so on. But it's so
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: emotionally just like you know, if you've been raised in
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: a family, is just natural that it's also going to
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  Speaker 3: be so emotionally wrapped up that that I think compounds
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  Speaker 3: the distorting effects that can make it hard to get
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: the distance or the detachment to really try to be
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  Speaker 3: objective of what are you getting out of this relationship? Now?
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  Speaker 3: What do you owe your parents, if anything, of these people,
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  Speaker 3: And sometimes you do on them something out of respect
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  Speaker 3: for what they have given you, if.
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  Speaker 2: They have given you a great deal and so on.
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  Speaker 3: But you know, we talked a little bit that weekend
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: about at some point you do, as an adult, you
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: do have to kind of take ownership of all of
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: your relationships, including the uncomfortable aspects of your relationships with
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: your parents. But I don't mean by that just accept
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: the uncomfortable, but confront like, well, no, maybe I really
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: don't like this aspect of my parents now, or how
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: they treat me these days, or what they're expecting of me,
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: and I need to set the boundaries or make clearer
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: to them. No, I'm not just going to abjectly, you know,
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: recede into my twelve year old self every time you
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: come around, you know, mommy and Daddy. But I mean,
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: but it's hard. I mean, it is hard, and it's
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: you know, I think in general, we're not poised to
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: alienate other people. We like to get along.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: Everybody likes to get along.
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: But you're the getting along when it's submerging what's really
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: good for you, For instance, spending holidays with family when
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: you would really rather not be, And it's like, really,
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: your considered opinion is I'd be better off just you know,
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: staying in Puerto Rico this year, staying or whatever it is.
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: You don't have to do that, like it, but it's
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: just being honest and like, no, this isn't worth it
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: to me. There may be other things that are worth
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: it to you to you know, maintain the relationship in
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: certain ways, but prices you don't want to pay.
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was one of the aspects we were thinking about.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and then and there's such a sense of duty
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: that the culture tries to impose on us when it
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: comes to fair and.
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: Blood is thicker than water and all of this, like
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: blood is accidental, you know, I mean certain of our blood.
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: It's like that's an accident and we can, you know,
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: we can take it forward in a positive way, depending
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: on the individuals.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: Involved or not.
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: So.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: Part I found really interesting was when we talked about
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: kind of in more intimate relationships, I think, the value
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: of the other. This idea that really I think Nathaniel
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: Brandon introduces explicitly kind of into objectivism with the idea
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: of visibility. And there was some pushback about visibility, which
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: I found interesting. I think I think that was I
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: thought that was new to me.
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I think it's it's less clear, like what
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: the whole concept of visibility means or is about, is
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: a little fuzzier than I used to think, you know,
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: and there are a few different senses in which it
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: can be used, and I think a few of these
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: are are real phenomena. So, for instance, there's you get
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: to see in this other person the personification of a
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: lot of your most important values, right, so they're made
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: visible to you, and something like something like the way
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: that an artwork makes real perceptible. You know certain things
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: that you really value, but obviously this isn't a person.
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: The person isn't an object of contemplation. That's a person
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: to human being, leading a life. But you get to
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: see that. Then there's another sense in which we sometimes
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: speak of visibility, that you you perceive that you are
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: visible to this person, that this person who loves you, Oh,
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: she gets me, she sees me, she sees me, she
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: sees the important aspect I mean, if you know ideally
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: you have that kind of relationship. But it's the value
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: of being seen yourself. So those are two very different
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: perspectives on it. But one of the things we talked
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: about that I agree. I thought it was a really
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: interesting session that we had on visibility and the value
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: of being valued. And I think encar was you know,
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: pointing this out like an artwork, is there for contemplation.
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: Your wife, your husband, you know, your lover, They're not
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: there for contemplation.
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: You're you know, if.
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: You've partnered up, you're going through life together, you're living together,
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: and you're seeing the way values, values that you really
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: care about manifest themselves in this particular form of this
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: person who's doing it and all, and you're enjoying them together.
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: But yeah, in a related vain, we just talked about
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: the value of being valued, and obviously that's going to
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: depend on, well, who's valuing you and what are their standards.
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: And I mean, so even if you leave aside love
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: relationships or romance or anything like that, I think we
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: all know from experience that the value of a compliment
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: depends on who it came from and how intelligent did it.
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: I mean, compliments are very nice, the other things being equal, right,
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: but there are some that you appreciate much more than
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: others because you respect the judgment of that person more
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: than others, or because ah, she's explaining what she means.
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: And yes, that's a good reason to say that as
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: opposed to you know, or it might be just the
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: the polite or even if not merely polite, the simple.
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: So I mean there's a value in being valued by
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: people whom you value and whose judgment you respect. And
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: here again, like think of the fiction. It was a
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: very very good thing that Francisco valued Hank.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: And I think it meant something to Hank. And I
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: don't think, oh, you see he's just a secondhand or too. No,
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: I mean, he didn't care about the phrase any jerk, right,
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: but it's like, oh, this guy sees some of what's
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: really good, Like that's a wonderful It's an affirmation of
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: your values and your you know, you can all use
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: that from from time to time.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think I think the relationship between Hank
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: and and Francisco is really interesting because if you know,
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: Hank's opinion Offensis is very negative to begin with, and
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: how it evolves over time, how he comes to realize
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: kind of.
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: The truth right, right, and and appreciate.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: Those compliments because in the beginning of the compliments, he's
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: pushing them away because he just play for you, I
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: don't want to playboy.
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: This jerk is ne'er do well. Oh, it's everything I hate.
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: Right, but he keeps.
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: Seeing different evidence and he keeps thinking about I mean
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: earlier you're bringing up. It takes a lot of thought
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: to really think about your selfish values, and it takes
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: a lot of honesty about your experience. So this guy,
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: he is not playing to my image of him. Okay,
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: But but right, Riten continues to pay attention to the
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: evidence and what he's getting such that the view really
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: changes than Francisco because he sees he sees more who
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: he is. Yeah, I thought there's something.
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: Else I was going to say now, but I lost it.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that for too much, And I think
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: there's the point on call made. There was too much
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: made of this idea of seeing them seeing somebody else
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: reflect back you, And this seems to be a in Brandon.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: This seems to be a sort of neediness to be
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: seen by others. And I think the emphasis during that
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: session was was more about seeing the value of this person,
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: the life living together in this person, and kind of
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: what that represents metaphysically in terms of valuing evaluating the
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: world around us.
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think there is value in having your
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: value recognized by somebody else. Right, No, but it's gotta
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: be having your genuine value recognized by them, you know,
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: sort of for the right reasons in an intelligent way.
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: It's not that I think this is like a you know,
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: a desperate need on a daily basis, so you know,
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: you've got to give you my little ego compliment every day, honey, Okay,
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: do that till death do us part. But there is
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: a kind of affirmation of yeah, you're you're you're a
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: good kind of person, or you're the kind of person
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: a person should be in certain ways. It's very it's
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: like a wind at your back or something like that.
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's a nice thing. And I do think again,
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: just talking about kind of rookie mistakes that some newer
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: objectivists sometimes make. Think you should be indifferent to others,
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: like utterly indifferent to others' attitudes towards you, like praise.
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: I shouldn't care in the least about praise. I ran
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: appreciated an intelligence compliment, right, I mean, and shouldn't she?
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: I mean, of course, if we think about justice and
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: being just to other people, it's an of justice. If
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: somebody says you're on you're a great speaker, like, well,
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: good for them. For recognized like it's all good to.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: Enjoy them absolutely, So, I mean that's.
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: Ability thing to it's so and this is where I'm
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: you know, over my head. But it's very psychological like
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: that whole I mean, Brandon was a psychologist. We had
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: Geno with us the other week, you know, to to
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: bring her psychological thoughts about some of these phenomena to
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: the table. But it's so entwined with just things that
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: are not fully consciously in your control.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I can give responses to this are not
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: going to be completely conscious, right. So, so somebody says
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: something to you, you feel first before you can you can
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: really think it through, and you know over time, over
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: time you align hopefully. But a lot of new people,
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: you know, they they try to repress I think a
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: lot of objectives when they're early, first introduced objectivesm tend
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: to try to repress those emotions.
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: Because you're not supposed to feel that way.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: That's right. You're supposed to think first, right, You're not
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: supposed to feel.
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: And feel us only get in the way it's right now,
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: don't well feel it, think it, think it afterwards, analyze it.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: But yeah, So another aspect of relationship with others. Is
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: this idea of the trader principle which is clear when
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: we talk I think about economics, it's it's clear that
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: when we buy something at the Ghosts store what the
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: trade is. But how do we how do we define
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: the trade when it comes to kind of spiritual relationship values?
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: Now there's some again, I mean going back to some
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: of what we were talking about towards the very beginning
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: of there's just you know, this world where all these
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: people do these great things. But it's oh, you're a
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: great guy because you're a good supermarket stopper or something,
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: or oh you're great just because you have a great
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: recipe at the restaurant or something. There's that extra or
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: bonus of seeing people go after their lives. I mean,
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: I'm jumping ahead a little bit here, right, but you know,
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: when you ask about spiritual value, there's seeing human lives thriving.
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: Isn't it a wonder? I mean, think about small children,
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: you know, the smallest children, and every little mile so
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: oh and now he's starting to make noise, you know,
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: and now he's starting to oh it's a word, you know,
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: where he's like each of those things we celebrate as
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: we should. It's like, yes, a life developing and flourishing.
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: And when you see people doing work that they love,
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: like clearly some they're into it, they really like. And
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: this could be in any sphere. It doesn't have to
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: be of some great ambition or the you know, the businessmen, entrepreneurs.
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: We always write about the innovators. But when you see
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: people going after value, when you see people going after
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: the wine kind of sur who's just oh no, he
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: knows this region that has the cabernet that or what like.
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: It's people valuing, which is what we're here to do.
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: We're here to have a good time, you know, to
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: make the most of our lives. And the spiritual value
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: that you can get out of so much that you
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: appreciate that other people are doing, then there's like another
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: level of spiritual value. It's just yes, you go to
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: Starbucks and you enjoy their brew, let's say, but you
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: might also enjoy the camaraderie of that barista who I
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: see every Monday morning when I go in there or something,
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: or maybe I still sit in a Starbucks for an
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: hour or so and I enjoy that.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: I mean, there's all that kind of spiritual value too.
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: But I thought the I really enjoyed the session on
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: the trade or principle because it was bringing together the right.
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: I think the first connotations are always economic. With the trader,
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: it's like a trade. And you can think of a
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: trade in a fairly bare boned way. You know, we exchange.
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: You have this right now in your home, and I
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: have this and we're gonna exchange it. And there's you know,
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: there were these pre existing goods and now we've just
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: shuffled around who has what. But in fact, when people trade,
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: like and again, look, oh we know this, but we
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: forget this sometimes. That is I think objectivists known at
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: least like, oh, when we trade, why do we do
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: that because we'll be better off? No, No, I'd rather have
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: that than the money I'm exchanging for it. You know,
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: you know it's I'll be better off and you're doing
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: the same thing. So that alone brings us both to
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: a better place than just this beare reshuffling around of
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: what already exists. We're creating better conditions for both of us.
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: We're building I mean, we're contributing to a relationship in
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: which we can have further trades, whether it's you and
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: me in the future or me and other people, but
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: this whole community of oh yeah, we can build up,
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: we can take advantage of the things that one another
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: does on another, do one another does right, and and
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: create richer lives for ourselves. So it's a it's an
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: environment that breeds benevolence. I mean, when you have free trade,
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: when you are getting to decide how you're spending your time,
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: your money, right, your labor, when you're when you're free
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: to choose, and then you see all the options out there, right,
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: and you get like, wow, this is it's going to
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: reinforce that sort of benevolent outlook on people that'll make
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: you want to be charitable when you have you know,
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: the resources to be charitable. Again and here again think
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: about the corrosive influence of altruism on the other side, yep.
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: I mean, one of the things we read was that
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: horrific because it's graphic and it's so true from Atlas,
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: the description of what went on at the twentieth century
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: motor company, right, and the Okay, you know, you you
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: systematically just pick people's pockets, treating them as they've got
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: to you know, got to give to you. And the
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: resentment and the hostility anti life, right, animis that that
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: breeds is ulterio true to life. I mean in terms
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: of the depiction there.
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I know. I think once you understand, even
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: on the economics level, what the win win kind of
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: value added benefit of trade is. So you buy an
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: iPhone for a thousand dollars and you're grateful to Apple, maybe,
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: But then there's all the different stuff that goes inside this,
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: the people who made the microprocesses and the people who
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: designed it, and the you know, just and just a
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: miracle of the of of.
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: Of it's egenable right, right, And what you want to
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: get is it's not a miracle Joe Schmo and Mary Schmo.
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: It's like and this individual did, like they made this happen. People,
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: human beings. I mean, this is why it's like people
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: the value mass in Like, you know, one thing I
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: think is, look, if reason is man's means of survival, right,
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: we're the ones with reason, Like, it's human beings. It's
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: not fid oh sorry, nothing against their beloved animals and all,
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: but it's we're the ones with reason. So look to
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: the value of these people. It's like the potential value
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: the value upside again the value mass indexes, you know,
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: pounds for pounds. There's a lot of potential there.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: So yeah, and in these economic transactions, most of the
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: people who've added value to your life, you you don't know,
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: you'll never meet you. They're anonymous, the complete strangers. And
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: this is why benevolence to its strangers makes so much
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: sense once you understand the value you get for those strangers.
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And I mean so many people who you know,
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: they just look they're at that well dressed when they
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: get on the plane with you or on the buzz
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: or Whatever's like that guy could be the guy like
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: who knows what he's doing. And again it's not like, oh,
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: he could be some great chemist or something. He's just
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: doing something really well.
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: Or it's like, no, there's a lot of good people
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: out there.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's one of the things that offends me
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: so much about the whole attitude to immigrants and immigration
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: right now is just a hostility to human beings.
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: The callousness and I mean yes, I don't know, Yes,
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: the callousness toward other human beings I find just I
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: find it hard to believe. I really find it hard
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: to believe. Like what and I do think what self
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: hatred and what evasion of humanity has got to be
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: going on for the people who could treat other human
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: beings and rejoice in some of the pain that people
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: have suffered with some of these ice raids and shootings.
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: You know, I find that just I mean the coursing.
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: And this is where altruism has brought us. It's like
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: God on many No selfish, yes, absolutely.
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: And they call and they think we're the malevolent ones
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: because we're selfish, you know, because the attitude to it
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: selfishness and the culture is so horrific.
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: Right right, it's so and it is such a lie,
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: it's such you.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: Know so so so one of the things that you know,
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: people throw back at me often when we talk about
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: selfish selfishness is this idea of the trade of principle.
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: So so, what do you trade with your wife? You
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: you know, how does this trade work?
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: You know?
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: And friends and so so talk a little bit about
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: how that does work and work.
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: It's this minimizing again that seems to come from a
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: very thing to out understanding of trade or it's like, yeah,
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: you value the person for their values, like the things
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: that you genuinely value, Like I love her sense of life,
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: or I love for vivaciousness, or I love whatever. You know.
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: But but there's there's an answer like but whatever, there's
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: specifics and yes, those are values and you get to
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: enjoy those in this relationship and you're bringing something to
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: So there is a trade definitely. Again, it's a lot
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: of it is spiritual trade. It's not you know, yeah,
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: but I guess I don't. There's this reductivist view, and
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: I think too, it's a caricature of what goes on
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: in many of our relationships. And if some of these people,
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: I think we're honest about just looking at their own
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: relationships as their friendships. Even they know there are things
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: they get out of different friends. He's really talked to
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: about my problems or my love life, or he's really
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: good when I just want to forget about work and
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: have a good time and have some you know, Like,
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: we know there are different things we get out of
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: different friends, and that's why we go back to them
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: and we realize some of what we bring to them.
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: So they're yes, there's trading going on, but it's as
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: if oh, well, trading is bad, trading is just mercantile,
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: or that comes from you know, there's this mind body
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: split too that just comes from the base materialist part
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: of us. It comes from part of us. Yeah.
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: Well, and it has to be a trade. I mean
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: if it wasn't a trade, the relationship wouldn't work. Ultimately,
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: if there is a friendship and you're listening, but I'm
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: never listening, and it's it's not going to.
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: Absolutely right, no, and it's not working. Now you're just
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: kidding yourself if you think it is. Yeah, Yeah, good.
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: Any anything, what have we anything coming out of this
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: seminar we haven't covered. I mean, this has been a lot.
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: That's good.
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: I don't know if they come up more.
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: But yeah, there's some good questions. I think we'll get
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: to those in a minute. Let's I know you're teaching.
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: We talked about this before the show. You're teaching a
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: court of course on on philosophy of law. And there's
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: been this, you know, major major decision to Supreme caught
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: on on tariffs. There maybe a another decision coming down
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: the pipe on birth right citizenship. I think that's going
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: to be a big one. Any any kind of thoughts
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: of the quote as we have it today, Your thoughts
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: about the Justices.
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: Man such mixed thoughts.
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: I mean, in the Supreme Court is our you know,
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: the judiciary in general, it's our bulwark. And I was
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: greatly relieved the other day at this decision. Just relieve
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: that there's a breath of hope for liberty, I think,
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: and jet so I guess a few different different thoughts
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: about the Supreme I have great respect for them. I
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: do think that all of them act in good faith
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: in their own, you know minds. I think they're trying
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: to go by the law and their understanding of what
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: doing that means. So yes, I was glad of this decision.
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: From what I've read about it, and particularly about Gorsuch's opinion,
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: I think there's you know, real things to cheer that
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: are signs of encouragement for the future in terms of
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: the major questions doctrine, in terms of understanding that you
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: don't have as much power as you claim, like the
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: Constitution still means something. And in the course i'm teaching,
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: so right, I'm teaching a philosophy of law class, and
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: the way I'm doing it this semester because I do
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: it usually a different way. But the first few weeks,
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: first three or four weeks, maybe we just spent on
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: the rule of law, like what that ideal is and
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: why that ideal is important. And then a constitution. You know,
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: not everybody has or has always had a constitution. And
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: what's the difference between the American notion of a constitution
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: and the British one that was very familiar to us
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: before we broke away, And how they've had different ideas
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: of a and constitutionalism. And you have to realize for
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: a lot of these students, these things politics, the law.
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: It's all kind of merged together.
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: So continually I'll bring up things from the news, and
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: it's been interesting because there's just been so many challenges
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: to government actions. There have been so many lawsuits against
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: different things that Trump has done, and then there will
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: be a court rum and you know, usually a lower
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: court ruling more often than a Supreme Court ruling. But
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: I'll call their attention to you. See, now, this is
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: how it's supposed to work. In that No, the president
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: can't just write his own ticket. He's limited by the
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: limited government laid out there. So we're taught, like we're
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: not going to spend a day on the tariff's decision
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: or anything like that.
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: We've got we're getting to freedom of religion tomorrow. We
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: have we have bigger fish to fry.
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: But but I'll bring it up again as an example
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: of so you see the judiciary or you know, exerting
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: its authority and doing its job, trying to police that
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: the Constitution is what's really governing us rather than just
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: the individuals, even if you know, if one can imagine
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: the individuals and in the Congress someday actually exerting uh
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: some will.
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: Now you've got to you've got a strong interest in
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: issues of privacy and and Fourth Amendment. And again particularly
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: a Fourth Amendment right now is in the news because
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: of ICE and because of what they doing. So any
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: any particular work that you're doing.
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a relatively recent you know, an academia in
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: intellectual matters, we move so slowly, relatively recent, maybe three
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: or four years now. I've really gotten interested in the
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: privacy thing. But yes, as it happens, and like right
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: now I'm writing a paper on profiling, which is related
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: to some of what's going on with ICE. And it
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: wasn't instigated by I mean, the interest in this issue
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: of profiling predates the ICE raids of recent months, but
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: it's definitely related because I think it's so there was
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: a sort of cluster of issues that are related. But
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: part of for me I had to just clarify and distinguish.
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: There's profiling, you know, if you've heard of I'm sure
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: you have racial profile police profiling people. Then there's predictive
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: policing yep. And we refer to dragnets sometimes, and we've
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: got these geofence warrants. Now you know where, uh well,
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: geofence in area. So for instance, a cell service provider
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: has data because they're constantly tracking your movements so that
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: you can use ways or you know, the directional things
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: and so on your iPhone you're following one when I'm
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: talking about all this, ye, So anyway georight, so that
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: you know that the government will now sometimes subpoena Google
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: is the geofence thing to give us all the data
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: within this geographic region on you know, between Friday midnight
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: and Saturday midnight or something, because we're looking for the
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: culprits of the arson or the robbery or whatever it
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: might be. So you've got these different kinds of government investigations. Again,
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: sometimes it's stops searches going into somebody's home. Sometimes it's
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: a more extended kind of part of an investigation. But
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: I so I wanted to collaborate what's the relationship between
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: some of these things. And I'm up in this paper
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: zeroing in on profiling and what's wrong with crude too
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: crude profile because there's a kind of profiling that I
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: think is absolutely fine for certain purposes. But what we
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: seem to be seeing with the ice raids too is
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: a lot of very crude profiling or prediction of where
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: we can find the bad guys or the illegal immigrants.
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: So I'm harping on the idea of the individuality of
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: suspicion on how you need to have specific grounds for
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: stopping this guy that are not just well, he's you know,
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: he has a foreign last name, where he speaks Spanish.
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: You know, some of the things that Kavanaugh was saying
• 43:42
  Speaker 3: are okay in the Vazquez decision back in the fall.
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: So anyway, I'm trying to insist on the individuality of
• 43:51
  Speaker 3: grounds for suspicion as a basis for stopping somebody, detaining somebody.
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: So would you still call that profiling?
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry, So which part you're at specific?
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: Would you still call it profiling in a way.
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: Not in a way, it's not profile. If I've really
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: got evidence that you either have some information that I
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: need or have done something you're not supposed to do,
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: then it's no longer profiling. But what I'm saying is
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: when we allow these sorts of crude profiles.
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: So when would profiling be legit? It seems like you're
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: suggesting there some profiling that you think is legit. It's
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: not cruel.
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: So after the fact, right, okay, so something like this,
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: and I'm still working on.
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: This, but I think this is interesting.
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: After the fact there's been a crime, So it's not
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: that we're anticipating a crime.
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: Is all, like, oh, you know, they.
• 44:46
  Speaker 3: Mug that old lady in the park, or they disrupted
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: the speaker on the public grounds or something, and we're
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: looking for who did it, and we have some descriptions
• 44:55
  Speaker 3: from many eyewitnesses. They're all consistent with just you know,
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: so we're looking for a middle aged white man.
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: You know, there's only about five foot two or whatever
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: it might be.
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: You know, so you're profiling to narrow down suspects like
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: that kind of profiling I think is okay, And even
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: for I think deployment of resources, but not like Okay,
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: police departments. They have to decide where they're gonna put
• 45:24
  Speaker 3: more guys on the on the beat patrol, and so
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: where we're gonna spend more money, and certain neighborhoods have
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: more crime than others. There's a sense in which so
• 45:33
  Speaker 3: there may be some profiling of I mean, maybe that's
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: not exactly profiling, but certain kinds of profiling I think
• 45:42
  Speaker 3: could legitimately come into how you allocate some resources, which
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: is not yet we're gonna stop you. We're gonna go
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: in your home without right that's where you need a warrant.
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: More So, I'm trying to work out some of how
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: this should work with the need for a warrant and
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: the right kind of war as opposed to some of
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: these administrative warrants that ICE has been using lately rather
• 46:03
  Speaker 3: than judicial wares. Trying to work that out, but again
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: insisting on the individuality of suspicion.
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: And I want to argue that when you.
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: Deny that you're in it's as if you're reversing the
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: presumption of innocence, because I think that's what's some of
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: what we're seeing going on is there's this presumption while
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: they're all guilty, therefore we can just go in and
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: treat them as we like, which is so antithetical too,
• 46:29
  Speaker 3: you know, it's like, no, you've got to have something
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: on me before you can interfere with with my life
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: and what I'm doing. So anyway, that's the current paper,
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: very much still in the early stages. Good, I'm working
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: on so but yeah, the Fourth Amendment stuff is I've
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: gotten very interested in that, and I'm also interested in
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: a more personal end of privacy as well, apart from
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: the law.
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: But yeah, that's been fun.
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: You're teaching in air Yukos, you know, or you're going
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: to be teaching on.
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: I'm going to very soon. Good thank you for the
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: chance to plug. Starting in April, I think April first,
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: maybe teaching an ethics course on the virtues. So I
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: did a course a couple of years ago for AARU
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: which was an introduction to the objectivist ethics. This one
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: is on the moral virtues, so how to live the
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: selfish life, you know, Rand's discussion of honesty and justice
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: and productiveness and pride, integrity, independence. So we'll basically spend
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: a week on each I think Injustice's case, maybe a
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: couple of weeks, but we're you know, really talk about
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: what does this mean in practice? How is this egoistic?
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: How is this good for me? Right? A lot of
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: people like honesty? What does that have to do with egoism?
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: And we'll talk about conventional idea with each of these virtues,
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: what's the conventional take on pride or on honesty, and
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: what's the conventional reason for why you should be and
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: then sort of correct some of that with the objectivist
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: understanding of why you really need to be just and
• 48:02
  Speaker 3: have integrity and all that. So it should be a
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: lot of fun. I look forward to that, because again,
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: the virtues are where we live. Yes, all right, it's
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: how you deal with your roommate, how you deal with.
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: Your mother, day to day life, everything, how.
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: You introspect and deal with yourself and your own conflicting
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: sometimes desires and emotions. So yeah, so that starts in April, people,
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: I think, I think registration is already open.
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: Yes, it's air I Live. I think that it's called
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: now okay, good a life, And you guys can go
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: to ironman dot org slash start here and go to
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: the air I Live tab and you can find the
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: course there and then everything for the next semester. Yeah,
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: that's exciting, that'll be fun.
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: Good good, thanks for remembering that, of course.
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: Of course. Uh let's so we've got a bunch of questions,
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: so let's maybe start on those and see, uh see
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: how far we go. So thank you guys for submitting questions.
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: I do want to thank let me see Troy as usual,
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: Troy from Australia, five hundred Australian dollars. Thank you, Troy.
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: It's very generous than Yeah, Troy is great. Robert, thank you, Cobb,
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: thank you. So these are just stickers without questions. So
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: now we'll go to questions Dave. Dave says, really appreciate
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: the intellectual candor that applies to individuals and how they
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: operate in a social setting. Not a question, but thank
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: you Dave. Appreciate that Loan the center. I sense that
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: Iran's supreme and ruling values underappreciated as compared to her
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: identification of life as the standard and her virtues can
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: tell comments on their importance structural features of Iran's ethical theory.
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: Her profound valueses. So I guess I guess he means reason, purpose,
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: self esteem. Yeah, now that's a very interesting question. I mean,
• 50:15
  Speaker 3: they're there throughout in my own work. I haven't brought
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: a great deal of attention to like at times I have,
• 50:22
  Speaker 3: I've written on self esteem. But they are, you know,
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: for rand and she makes clear they are the ruling values,
• 50:32
  Speaker 3: that the virtues that you know. We were just saying
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: I'm going to teach this course on the virtues and
• 50:36
  Speaker 3: that's how you live. But that's how you value reason
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: by for instance, being honest, not faking it, not faking
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: it with others, not faking what you think.
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: Or you know, what you know with yourself.
• 50:51
  Speaker 3: That is one of the ways that we value reason,
• 50:54
  Speaker 3: by being honest, by being productive. You've got to make
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: your way in the world, right, you can only think,
• 51:00
  Speaker 3: think what you think you've got, you know, you've got
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: to be independent and so on. So reason purpose is
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: so crucial to doing anything constructive. That's also going to
• 51:11
  Speaker 3: be building toward this composite life of values and valuing.
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: And it's interesting self esteem, I think, going back to
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: the issue of valuing other people, often what gets in
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: the way of healthy valuing of other people is not
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: sufficiently valuing oneself or having some real self esteem deficits
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: can really screw up how you see others that have
• 51:33
  Speaker 3: a threat to you in some way. So yeah, self esteem,
• 51:38
  Speaker 3: I see, And again I have a chapter on that
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: in the recent book.
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: Egoism Without Permission.
• 51:43
  Speaker 3: There's a whole discussion of self esteem there, and I
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: gave a lecture on self esteem a few years ago
• 51:47
  Speaker 3: to Okon. But I think they're all really crucial and
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: enmeshed with the virtues, which.
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: Is, are the actions you need to take to attain
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: these values and the values are necessary life.
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, Uh, let's see chuzbut he has a quote what
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: can you do when you have to deal with people?
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: That's a quote from doctor Stadler. Any comments on how
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: the villains and Rand's novels view other people.
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: It's hard to make war.
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: I mean, you know that they're different, the villains, but
• 52:32
  Speaker 3: they're all the same in some ways. They're all such
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: frightened children, and that that insults children, you know. No,
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: they're all like such small, shriveled no talk about no
• 52:46
  Speaker 3: self esteem and no.
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and so much of the interaction with other people
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: seems to be focused on manipulating them.
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because they're the fundamental reality for them as opposed
• 52:59
  Speaker 3: to like problems let's solve, like the problems of life,
• 53:03
  Speaker 3: or how to build a better railroad, or how to
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: build a better anything, or do something real. But it's
• 53:08
  Speaker 3: others are a threat to them, So I've got to
• 53:09
  Speaker 3: manipulate others to alleviate the threat or alleviate my fear
• 53:13
  Speaker 3: of these other people. Let me just try to think
• 53:16
  Speaker 3: a minute more though over think. I mean, Stadler is
• 53:21
  Speaker 3: an interesting character because he's got that superiority comp or
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: whatever like other people. Like what is he looking for
• 53:28
  Speaker 3: from others? It's just so sad, like the kinds of
• 53:31
  Speaker 3: confirmation that people want or acceptance. It's such an invasion
• 53:37
  Speaker 3: of reality and think in contrast of somebody like Rourke,
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: yep him in the world, he's a piece, I mean
• 53:44
  Speaker 3: from the very opening scene, like he likes being here,
• 53:48
  Speaker 3: he likes being alive on this earth, you know, with
• 53:50
  Speaker 3: the rock diving into the people don't get in the
• 53:55
  Speaker 3: way for him. So one of the great vert I mean,
• 53:58
  Speaker 3: I love the virtue of independence, you know, that's one
• 54:00
  Speaker 3: of the great ones. But it's just it's about you,
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: what I mean, intellectual independence, thinking your own thoughts, you know,
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: using your own judgment. I mean relying on others in
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: the sense of you. You don't depend on them, but
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: you gather from them. Sure, you try to learn, there's
• 54:18
  Speaker 3: so much to learn from other people and all. But
• 54:21
  Speaker 3: you're doing the processing. You're doing the thinking, making the
• 54:24
  Speaker 3: logical connections, asking the questions, not accepting something before you
• 54:28
  Speaker 3: really see why it makes sense for yourself. Yeah, and
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: that is so what the different kinds of I mean,
• 54:36
  Speaker 3: even the Stadler villains lack the independence of judgment.
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's amazing, given how brilliant he is. Right, So
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: it just shows that it's not an issue of intelligence,
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: it's an issue of values and virtues. Liam says, Hi,
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: could you give us could you give us you assessment
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: of Donald Trump and how narcissistic, how narcissists can't see
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: any value in others.
• 55:11
  Speaker 3: Okay, I'm not going to say much about Trump other
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: than this, I disdain him. I think he's a despicable
• 55:19
  Speaker 3: human being. Maybe I'll leave it at that. It's his
• 55:29
  Speaker 3: being president is well, yeah, let's leave it at that.
• 55:36
  Speaker 3: Then what was the other question about, you.
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: Know, the relationship between how narcissists can't see any value
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: in other people.
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: Oh, I guess.
• 55:48
  Speaker 3: I've not thought about narcissism in that way exactly. I mean,
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: they clearly don't see much value in themselves, and that's
• 55:55
  Speaker 3: why they're trying to pump themselves up and act as
• 55:57
  Speaker 3: if they do, because they want to try to convince
• 56:00
  Speaker 3: themselves that they value themselves. As a narcissist not see
• 56:08
  Speaker 3: any value in others. I mean, they're just so wrapped up,
• 56:11
  Speaker 3: it seems in trying to show their value that it's
• 56:15
  Speaker 3: as if others register only in so far as they
• 56:17
  Speaker 3: might help them prop up their self image. I mean,
• 56:23
  Speaker 3: it's all skewed for the narcissist. I think, just you know,
• 56:27
  Speaker 3: the value, the value that they themselves might have, and
• 56:31
  Speaker 3: the value of others. It's it's all seen through this
• 56:34
  Speaker 3: defensive lens that's got to.
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: Image.
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: Psychologically, it's very difficult to have a trade a kind
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: of mentality with gods to other people when you don't
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: value yourself because there's nothing to trade.
• 56:52
  Speaker 3: There's nothing, yeah, all right, and part of you knows
• 56:54
  Speaker 3: that knows that anything is gonna be.
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 57:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's interesting too, just not even not just in
• 57:04
  Speaker 3: trading with other people, but in valuing other people. You know,
• 57:08
  Speaker 3: Rand has the line about to say I love you,
• 57:12
  Speaker 3: one must first know how to say the eye. And
• 57:14
  Speaker 3: that applies not just.
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: To you know, a love, yeah, you know the love
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: of your life.
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: Anything.
• 57:20
  Speaker 3: It applies to people, right. But it's like, it's gonna
• 57:23
  Speaker 3: be really hard to value people.
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: If you don't value yourself.
• 57:25
  Speaker 3: So that comes back to the self esteem thing. They're like, like,
• 57:29
  Speaker 3: you don't know what it is to value truly if
• 57:31
  Speaker 3: you don't value yourself, Like valuing yourself is the the
• 57:36
  Speaker 3: I don't know the foundation for valuing. Oh, these things
• 57:38
  Speaker 3: in my life, these things in my Oh, I can
• 57:40
  Speaker 3: have that too. I can enjoy that, I can enjoy him.
• 57:44
  Speaker 3: Being a valuers all stems from valuing yourself. And if
• 57:48
  Speaker 3: you don't love yourself, if you don't value yourself, yeah,
• 57:51
  Speaker 3: you can't value other people. You can't value anything. It's
• 57:54
  Speaker 3: it's gonna be good.
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: Jonathan Owning says, Tara is a brilliant author.
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: Thank you, Jonathan, you're a brilliant reader. Jonathan, thank you.
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: Roman says what is thank you? What is empathy? And
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: why is it valuable?
• 58:17
  Speaker 3: This is not a very don't it's not at all
• 58:23
  Speaker 3: a refined sense of But I mean, I just think
• 58:26
  Speaker 3: of empathy, as you know, the traditional I mean, they'll
• 58:30
  Speaker 3: say it's feeling with another person. I just think of
• 58:33
  Speaker 3: it as and I mean I might be corrected here, okay,
• 58:37
  Speaker 3: but empathy a kind of natural feeling for the feelings
• 58:44
  Speaker 3: of others, in particular usually for the suffering that they
• 58:50
  Speaker 3: might be going through. But in so far as you know,
• 58:53
  Speaker 3: you don't have to lionize suffering to realize it's real.
• 58:56
  Speaker 3: It's a genuine phenomenon that everybody, to differing extents for
• 59:00
  Speaker 3: different reasons, is got. Like we suffer. That's the flip
• 59:04
  Speaker 3: side of valuing. We lose values, we have things that
• 59:08
  Speaker 3: hurt our values, and so on. And empathy is I think,
• 59:12
  Speaker 3: you know, I can feel for your own if he
• 59:15
  Speaker 3: is going through a really hard time because of some
• 59:17
  Speaker 3: loss in his life or some you know, deep uncertainty
• 59:20
  Speaker 3: about something that he really got. I mean, I can
• 59:22
  Speaker 3: feel for him, and it's a it's a natural, I
• 59:26
  Speaker 3: think reaction.
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: And it's some of them, you know.
• 59:28
  Speaker 3: A few a few minutes ago, we were both commenting
• 59:31
  Speaker 3: on the coarseness and the callousness of some of the
• 59:34
  Speaker 3: attitudes that we're seeing.
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: Evidenced these days.
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: In again, I'm talking about the ice rates or attitudes
• 59:41
  Speaker 3: toward immigrants and empathy is that it's like, oh, you
• 59:45
  Speaker 3: can feel for people. Now, that doesn't mean go out
• 59:49
  Speaker 3: there and turn your life into serving these other people
• 59:51
  Speaker 3: or some but natural fellow feeling seems appropriate fellows who you've.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, given that you value others. Yes, they're suffering unnatural yeah,
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: Andrews says, let's see some objectivests get touchy. If you
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: ever hint at judging personal tastes, Rand thought Beethoven reflected
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: malevolent universe, and I hear what does that even mean?
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: Is it okay to disagree? But she was okay to disagree,
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm not sure I understand the question. Is
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: it too defensive? Any any comments?
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah? I also don't fully understand the question. Is it
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 3: okay to disagree with what? I mean? Yeah, it's okay to.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: Just have different taste Yep.
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 3: I think I like Mozart and I like Beethoven maybe
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 3: more than iron rendered.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: That's okay.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 3: There's nothing wrong with that, I mean, not just because
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 3: I happen to like.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: No, I don't think there's anything There's.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 3: Nothing wrong with liking or not liking certain things. Now,
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 3: certain things there might be something wrong like, okay, but
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 3: just the other day, I was having you know, that objectivest.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 3: I was shocked that he liked that movie that I
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 3: I mean, really, oh my god. But but it wasn't
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 3: a moral matter. It wasn't it did no bad character
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 3: on his part. Like, no, the difference people do get touched.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 3: I know what you mean. Question in that. Yeah, sometimes
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 3: I think a lot of people.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: Are uncomfortable with this whole area.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 3: Well, I'm kind of supposed to think of this, but
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 3: I'm not supposed to think this or feel this. And
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 3: certainly when it comes to the arts and certain other
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 3: regions in life, taste is you know, like taste is
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 3: variable within certain boundaries. I mean, if you enjoy torturing
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 3: cats or something, we have things to talk about.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 2: But no, there's a great.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 3: Range of legitimate, different enjoyments that would be different tastes. Now,
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 3: you know, if you read into certain things, if you
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 3: you know, or the reaction to certain music might be
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 3: related to the fact that that kind of music exudes
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 3: this to this idea to me, then there would be
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 3: good reason for your having the particular emotional reactions that
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 3: you have or affinities that you have.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: But yeah, it would be based in the reasons.
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 3: For your thinking or feeling.
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think anytime my advance says something like
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: Beethoven reflected malevolent Universe, it's worth thinking about why she
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: said it, because she, I mean, she was smart and
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: she knew his stuff. And I love Bethoven. He's probably
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: my favorite composer and I love his music. But I
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: know what she means, and and and she's oh yeah, yeah,
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: and she's probably right.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 3: No, I think you make a good point. And it's
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 3: always it's never worth like, oh, well, that was just
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 3: her taste. Then it was just some frivolous like if
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 3: she's making that kind of statement, it's worth looking at
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 3: is there anything to that? And there It also may
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 3: be that you know there is to some pieces and
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 3: not others, or you think he's just such a dark guy.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: And we've responded differently. We respond differently because we bring
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: different contexts to our aesthetic responses. So it'd be shocking
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: if we all like the same stuff, and if we
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: all get with dying man in terms of lakes. But
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: usually when she says something like that in Romantic Manifesto,
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: there's at least something we're thinking about in terms of
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: why she said it.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a very good reminder. Yeah, there usually is.
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 3: It wasn't given to the frivolous observation should put it
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 3: in print.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: To Yeah, and you can still disagree with her. That's fine.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: I mean, it doesn't mean you have to agree.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 2: But don't understand what she makes right.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, cob asks what is your assessment of the current
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: composition of Supreme Court justices? So we talked a little
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: bit about this earlier.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 3: Again, so many of them I have, like even individual
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 3: I have mixed views of some of them. Jo and
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 3: I were chatting a little bit, I think before we
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 3: got on. Gorsach is sometimes really good and sometimes not
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 3: so much. There's a way in which I really like
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 3: Kagan just because she's really smart and she's a really
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 3: good writer, and she'll get to the nub of an issue,
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 3: though I'm not you know, I don't agree like but again,
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 3: she's in the middle a lot of times, or she'll
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 3: be in six threes and so on.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: Oh boy, I don't want to There's some I really.
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 3: Don't have high opinions of. But I'll tell you this,
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 3: it's been interesting to me. Like I'll go a long time.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, it's another one of these stupid opinions from him,
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 3: another stupid you know, whether it's a majority or concurring
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 3: or a dissent another and then all it's like, oh,
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 3: but he was really good on this out of the blue,
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 3: like that will happen to me with some of the
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 3: justices of whom I like. There are a couple of
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 3: two justices which I have pretty negative opinions and have
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 3: for a while. They've both been on the quote a while,
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 3: so not the most recent of our of our people.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 3: But then they'll do some things that they're really good
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 3: on issue X. And I think that's important because they're
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 3: they're compartmentalized thinkers who you know, they're not really philosophically consistent,
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 3: even judicially philosophically consistent, so that on a given issue
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 3: they might be able to be very clear headed, like
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 3: some of them I think are really good on some
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 3: surveillance issues. I think so too. My Aora has written
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 3: some really good stuff basically in defense of the Fourth Amendment.
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 3: And she's not someone who in general yeah, okay, but
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 3: if you look at some like she's written some really
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 3: good stuff on Fourth Amendment related search issues. So many yeah,
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 3: so but I have very mixed views of a lot
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 3: of them and more. I mean, I wish I like Roberts.
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 4: I don't know what the hell he's all about, you know, Kavanaugh,
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 4: I'm not a particular fan of Thomas is like sometimes
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 4: good something.
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: It seems like Thomas used to be pretty good and
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: since Trump has been elected, has become kind of a
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: trumpeste if he's a band is judicial philosophy and become
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: just a Trump guy.
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 3: I don't know, I know, but again I think a
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 3: lot of these guys it's piecemeal. Uh, it's you know,
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 3: on a given issue, they can be really clear aheaded
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 3: because it's something they they're kind of, you know, I
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 3: hate to say pre committed to in a certain way,
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 3: but I think unfortunately, Yeah, I'll be really interested to
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 3: see more of Barrett's jurisprudence, because again, you're on chatting
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 3: a little bit before we got on. She's been better
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 3: than I expected. She's been much more careful and smart
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 3: a thinker in elaborating on her version of originalism than
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 3: I had anticipated. And she's smart, like she's a force
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 3: to be reckoned with even when I disagree with her.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 3: She's a worthy adversary.
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: You know whatever.
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 3: Like, so that's why I like the ones who are Okay,
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 3: they're making the best possible argument for this position, which
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 3: I still think might be wrong.
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 2: But she's a good you know.
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 3: And again I respect Kagan a lot on that front.
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 3: But but of course, which is a very interesting one
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 3: these days, because they'll stand up like he's in a
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 3: lot of.
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: Ways and some of these separation issues.
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, administrative state is very good.
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, he was good on Yeah. No, he was
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 3: good on equal protection in that case a few years ago.
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, all right. Richard asks, how does one practice the
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: virtue of independence in a relationship with a person who
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: fulfills they need for love independence in a loving relationship?
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 3: Well, so one just at least thing to asterisk is
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 3: who fulfills their need for love. A lot may depend
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 3: on what you mean by that need for love, like
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 3: what kind of need it is in this Like is
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 3: it a need to be propped up with? I mean
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 3: that sounds like a person who is not independent in
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 3: the first place, if he really needs to be loved
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 3: in a certain way by this other play, depending on
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 3: what what need you have in mind there that's being
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 3: served by this. But independence and a rational loving you know,
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 3: mutually loving relationship is the basis, the sort of necessary
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 3: foundation for the two people to genuinely be individuals who
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 3: are worthy of love, who are worthy.
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 2: Of valued, you know.
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 3: The the secondhander, the dependent of any sort, is not
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 3: a person to love to admire. That's not anything you
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 3: would want to encourage in another person. So it's two
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 3: individuals who in effect can stand on their own two feet,
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 3: you know, can stand on their own judgment and minds,
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 3: who will be the kinds of valuers who are bringing
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 3: any you know, or bringing any value to the world
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 3: such that another person might respond, Oh, you know, she's this,
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 3: she's that, She's got these wonderful qualities.
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 2: But it's hard.
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 3: They're all coming from the independence of the person. I mean,
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 3: the person who isn't independent doesn't truly have values yep,
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 3: and can't have value for others, for another, unless it's
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 3: just a kind of codependent, unhealthy sort of you help
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 3: me fake it, I'll help you fake it kind of relationship,
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 3: of which there are many.
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: It seems, sadly, Roma says is, how is it selfish
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: to support a liberation war in Iran? What do Uranians
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: need to here to choose liberal democracy? Over constitutional monarchy.
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 3: What do they need to hear? They just need to well,
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 3: I mean, the poor people need the freedom to be
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 3: able to chose their choice. Right, But it's the history
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 3: of the world will show them the I forget exactly
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 3: the way she here she put it. But liberal democracy,
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 3: I mean, you know, liberal liberty, I mean, is the
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 3: thing you would want with democracy.
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: Democracy of a constitutional monarchy. I mean, yeah, what matters
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: really is the details, right, What's what kind of constitutional
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: you know, what kind of liberty?
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 3: Right? I mean, you you want a constitution of individual rights,
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 3: a constitution that respects individual liberty.
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 3: But these poor people in Iran, they need the freedom
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 3: to be exposed, you know, to have full free internet
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 3: and access to everything. And for God's sake, these people
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 3: take the you know, get the boot off their necks
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 3: from these theocrats and the strangling absurdity of the mysticism
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 3: that has these people living in the conditions that they've
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 3: lived in.
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 3: But in so far as the more free people in
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 3: the world, the better, I mean, we're all better. The
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 3: more valuable people there are around us, we all that's
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 3: why what goes on around the world matters to like
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 3: we are. We all stand to gain from humanity's gains,
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 3: and not just because oh, my standard of living will
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 3: go up by X dollars. You know if if another
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 3: country is free again, there's not there's more kinds of
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 3: value in spiritual value that's real value as well. I mean,
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 3: I think sometimes people are oh when you talk about
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 3: spiritual value, just like smoking mirrors and you're trying to
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 3: say it's something. Think about the value of inspiration, Think
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 3: about the value of admiration, Think about the value these
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 3: are spiritual values. Think about the value of a good friend. Yeah,
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 3: I mean, like there are so many different think about
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 3: the value of learnings, of education, of learning something worthwhile. Like,
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 3: there's so many spiritual values that are real and enrich
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 3: our lives.
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 2: And the more you free up.
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 3: Human beings to bring whatever value they can bring to life,
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 3: like to realize values for themselves. But in doing so,
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 3: like there's all this bountiful stuff that other people get
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 3: to enjoy as well. It's a richer world the more
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 3: people are free and able to be selfish and.
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 2: Live and flourish.
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: Cobass Is it rational to enjoy women's sports more than
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: men's For example, I enjoy women's tennis more than men's tennis,
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: even though male tennis players objectively be much better. Is
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: that e galatianism?
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 3: Well, I don't think so. The question of which you
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 3: enjoy more, that's it. I would think that's just a
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 3: matter of personal taste. Like, I don't think you're objectively
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 3: you're making a comment. I enjoyed this more, right, I
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 3: enjoy this sport more than this sport or watching. I
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 3: enjoy men's tennis more than women's tennis, for what it's worth.
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 3: But I just happen to enjoy it more. But I'm
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 3: not making a statement on the metaphysical superiority of men
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 3: or the objective superiority of the male athlete or something.
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 3: It just that hooks me more. You know, I enjoy
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 3: the pace of the that's a lot of it. With
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 3: men's tennis. I enjoyed the pace more. But I don't
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 3: think there's a correct answer to what you should enjoy
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 3: more there. I mean, it's comparable to what we were talking
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 3: about earlier, a little bit in the arts and so on.
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Hupacampbell asked, will Trump turn Texas blue Texas?
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know.
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 3: I don't know, and I'm not in the prediction business.
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna yeah, yeah, uh Hapa gamble. Last, do you
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: see objectivism growing in Austin, Texas.
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you'd have to be blind not to It's it's nice.
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 2: It's great.
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 3: No, they're I mean, just a lot more objectivism moved
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 3: here in the last five years in particular, which is wonderful.
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 3: And it's nice because it's it's become then a magnet
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 3: for more and more, and it's it's terrific. So you
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 3: want to get down here too. I'm gonna have the
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 3: Iron Ran Center in a few years, which would be
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 3: further draw No, it's it's great, it's terrific. Yeah, it's
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 3: nice to have a hub where a lot of people
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 3: want to live.
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: It's a great place to have a hub. And is
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: California is emptied out in terms of objectivists. They've all
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: moved to Austin, which.
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 2: Is fantastic in real estate.
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: It's yeah, I lived there before, it was cool.
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 3: This is true.
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: Roman says, what do you think of shared executive power
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: at the top, like Switzerland or during the Roman Republic?
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: Two tributes.
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 3: Sorry, I really don't have an like I've not thought
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 3: about that. I've not thought about that. I don't know,
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 3: I don't know. I need to hear, like what are
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 3: the alleged advantages of this? But offhand I'm a little skeptical.
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 3: But I really don't know. It's not something I've given thought.
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: Sorry, Roman, I wasta should Supreme Court judges be elected
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: like in Mexico?
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 2: Oh no, I don't, probably not, Probably not.
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 3: I'm wary of popularizing the decision making for such an
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 3: important role of again put it policing the constitution. Yeah,
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 3: and I mean as it is like in the current system,
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 3: the president appoints subject to the approval of the set it,
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 3: which is itself elected, and so on.
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 2: So there's a sense in which the people have.
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 3: To say through their representatives in the approval process. But no,
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 3: I don't think the popularizing, so to put it, or
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 3: the democratizing of the judiciary, I don't think that's a
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 3: good direction. I think that's a dangerous kind of direction
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 3: to go on.
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: Frankly, well, when asks what do you think about Pallentea
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: the company and privacy?
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 3: Oh, I don't know, because do you have in mind
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 3: some specific privacy invasions that they're I.
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: Mean, suppose they're hoping I identified people. It's hard to tell.
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: Because it's also secretive. But yeah, they're using AI and
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: they're a surveillance company that they're good at that. Yeah,
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: And I.
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 3: Mean, you know, surveillance under some cond like surveillance can
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 3: be okay for very limited purposes and used in limited ways.
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 3: But I am very concerned about open ended surveillance or
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 3: I mean, there are different kinds of surveillance we have
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 3: these days, financial surveillance of laws that make you disclosed.
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 2: So I mean that's not.
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 3: I think, the kind of thing that Palatiner does. But
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 3: I mean surveillance we should be worried about in general.
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 3: But that doesn't mean there's never a time and place
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 3: for surveillance of certain you know. But I just don't
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 3: know enough about, particularly the things that Palenter might be facilitating.
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 3: And again, you can make a perfectly fine product, and how.
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 2: It's used or misused or abused or put.
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 3: To illicit purposes is another, you know, another matter.
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: It's the palanty wrote a book, came with this book.
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: It's it's it's scary, it's it's got this, it's got
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: this tinge of it's definitely collected, it's super collectivist.
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 3: And yeah, I've read about I haven't read the book.
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 2: I've read a lot about it.
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 3: No, he sounds like something of a nationalist.
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: Definitely, Yeah, definitely. So it is scary when when people
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: with those kind of philosophies have that kind of technological
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: power influence.
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, uh it's A woman else asks how do we
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: make the justice system more profitable? Yeah, I don't know
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: what that means profitable.
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 3: That sounds like policing for profit, which is a bad
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 3: thing when they like take your property and yeah, more profitable.
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 3: I'm not Yeah, I'm not exactly sure what you mean.
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, why we why would we want to make it
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: more profitable? Yeah, I don't know. A woman maybe he
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: can ask class exactly.
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's it's it's not to be a you know,
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 3: that's not the government's job to make a profit. It's
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 3: to be protective of our rights.
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 2: I mean efficiency is to.
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: Do Yeah, it's Stephen. Can you give a short encapsulation
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: of your legal methodology, he says, I think originalism's originalists
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: would say, we strive to identify the original, public reasonable
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: meaning of the text at the time it was written.
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: So do you have a encapsulated well, I don't know.
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 3: Well, I can encapsulate it but so I have a
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 3: book on this judicial review and an objective legal system,
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 3: and I do distinguish my view from the originalist view,
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 3: and I have too long. Well, I have a chapter
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 3: on textualism, and I have a chapter on public understanding originalism,
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 3: which sounds very much like what you just describe. Now,
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 3: there are ways of taking the words you just read
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 3: in the question that are perfectly fine, like there are
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 3: ways of taking that that I would be okay with.
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 3: But the ways that is off is usually taken by originalists.
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 3: Is the original understanding, be it right or wrong, be
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 3: it an objective or non objective, is what we must
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 3: go by. And that I think is a mistake because
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 3: you write laws and you have to try to then understand.
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 3: I mean, obviously you must try to understand what they
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 3: were trying to convey. But the person today reading a law,
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 3: I'm just an average citizen. I want to obey the
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 3: law right. The law has to tell me what I
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 3: can do. I'm not trying to read minds. I'm trying
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 3: to read the law. So we've got to be truthful
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 3: to the objective meaning of the law, and we've got
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 3: to realize that original meaners could have been wrong, like
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 3: the original meaners don't get to set the way the
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 3: world is such that it will conform to their understanding
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 3: in seventeen eighty seven or eighteen forty nine or whatever
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 3: it might have been of what a given concept means.
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 3: I mean, over time, our understanding of certain concepts changes.
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 3: We have the same basic idea of what a mammal is,
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 3: but what's classified as a mammal and what's you know
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 3: as a whale of fish or a mammal or so
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 3: that may change with advances and knowledge. This is a
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 3: little bit different. But think two of examples, like what's toxic.
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 3: We understand what it is to be toxic, but the
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 3: chemicals that might be listed as toxic chemicals might change
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 3: as we learn more about the properties of different toxins
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 3: over time, or different chemicals that aren't actually toxic over time.
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 3: So what I'm saying is to be objective is not
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 3: the same thing as to go by what the original
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 3: understanding was, because the original understanding of a concept that
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 3: was written into law might be a misunderstanding. And to
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 3: give people a fair chance to comply with the law,
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 3: they have to know what the rules are, and they
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 3: can only know that if they're going by the objective
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 3: meaning of the term, not what was in the minds
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 3: of those guys back then. But I go into this
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 3: in much more detail, and I think can make a
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 3: better case for it if you read the later chapters
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 3: of my book on judicial review.
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: Ian. A lot of people who reading man get the
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: wrong idea about independence and minimize the importance of things
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: like working with others, community and the value of others
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: in general. Any thoughts, No, I think you make a
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: good point.
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 3: They think that she's antisocial or you know, you've got
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 3: to make it a point to be different, and that's ridiculous. Again,
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 3: as we started out talking about, there's such great value
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 3: in other people and to gain from other people, and
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 3: in collaboration with other people, as you say, sometimes in
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 3: community with other people or working with others, you can
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 3: build I mean, I have these workshops that I have
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 3: because other people have such good ideas and it helps
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 3: me to think further and you know, deepen my understanding
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 3: and go farther and things. So there's so much to get.
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 3: There's nothing wrong with other people. There's something wrong with
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 3: letting them do your thinking for you, right, or listening
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 3: to your own Brooks so I know what to think
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 3: or what to say. It's like no, no, no, no. Now,
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 3: he might give me some good ideas that I can
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 3: think about further or not, but that's on me. But
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 3: for me to really get value from whomever it might be,
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 3: I've got to be independent and do my own thinking.
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 3: So that then if I'm working with others, I'm bringing
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 3: something to the working with others, right, And he's bringing
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 3: something too if he's an independent person. But yeah, no,
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 3: I take very well and warmly your point that. Yeah,
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 3: I mean, she's not antisocial at all. No part of
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 3: a rational, egoistic life would say, oh, I'm better off
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 3: without other people or just put me on the island.
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: No thanks, Yeah, right, Baker says, great to hear about
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: your course on the Virtues. I've just been listening to
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: Don watkins commentaries on the Virtues chapter in OPAH. They're great.
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: I didn't know he did that. That's good.
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I remember that from a few years ago. Yeah.
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: Stephen asked, how would you conceptualize the Battle of the sexes?
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: She wants opera? You want a movie doesn't mean one
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: of you can't be fully selfish or what.
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 3: So I don't think that's a battle of the second
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 3: are going to have, you know, differences like I want
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 3: to do this this week?
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 2: I know you want to do that.
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 3: How is that? What? How is it as selfish?
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah? How can you be selfish if you have to
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: compromise on stuff like that?
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 3: Well, if you'd be better off with al her, because
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 3: you know, if it's more important to you I want
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 3: to live a damn baseball game or whatever.
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 2: I forget it was opera in some movies.
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 3: If it's more important to you to go to their movie,
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 3: you know, than to have her, then go to you know,
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 3: if that's really what's more important. But if no, like
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 3: this relationship and this woman or this person, like, oh
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 3: this is of great value to me, guess what, we're
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 3: not always going to be in the mood to do
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 3: the same thing, you know, to go to the same
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 3: kind of restaurant, same entertainment on a weekend or something like, oh,
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 3: so maybe we can't, like if i'd rather, I mean,
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 3: one option is you go your own ways, right, But no, no,
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 3: I want to spend Saturday night with her. I haven't
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 3: seen her much this week, Like I want to be
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 3: at something like then it's not a loss it's not
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 3: a compromise. That's a net negative, Like, oh, you're just
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 3: subordinating yourself. Right. Obviously, if week after you know, or
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 3: anytime there's a disagreement, you know, you're letting one person
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 3: have their way ninety percent at the time, you know,
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 3: then there's something wrong. But I mean, you understand in
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 3: context that people's preferences will vary sometimes and you'll have to,
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 3: you know, if it's more valuable to you to be
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 3: doing things together, and there are there may be some
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 3: weekends it's like, you know, I really this is important.
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 2: You know, this opera is a really special and I
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 2: really want to go.
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 3: If it's going to be that painful for you, then
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 3: we should just do our own thing this weekend. That's
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 3: okay too, Yeah.
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: Uh. Steven says, how long can a bad person keep
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: a golf friend? What's this? How long can a bad
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: person keep a golfriend? Usually that's the fact that a
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 1: person is far from perfect morally, mean, he'll have to
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: forego romance.
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 3: Well, if you're trying to be moral, it should If
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 3: they're bad morally, I mean, what are you doing with
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 3: this person? If you really have moral, serious moral problems
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 3: with them? What are you getting out of the person
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 3: that is of real value?
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 2: I mean, why are you in this relationship?
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 3: You know?
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: And if somebody's fought from perfect Molali, then they should improve.
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: I mean, what what we feeling sorry for Mallali? Improft people?
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 3: I mean not particularly no everthe there sorry.
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 1: No, your morality is in your control. It's one of
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 1: the things that are really in your Yeah.
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 2: I mean maybe you just need, you know, to be
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 2: reminded of that.
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: But right, yeah, Steven says Tao, what do you think
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: of the argument of Elin woman that the woods subject
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 1: to the jurisdiction thereof in the Fourth Amendment? Mean political jurisdiction,
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: you know.
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 3: I'm sorry, I don't know because I haven't followed this
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 3: closely enough. This is the birthright citizenship issue, I think,
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 3: which they're still going to argue in a few weeks,
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 3: I think. I'm sorry, I really don't have an opinion
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 3: because I haven't paid close enough attention to that yet.
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 3: I expect that we'll be paying a little more attention
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 3: to it as it sort of comes to the fore
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 3: more and I'll focus there.
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 2: But sorry, yeah, okay, almost.
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 3: Of the surrounding history of how that language versus similar
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 3: language was used these jurisdictions.
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: Do you what do you think of book versus CHOI opinion,
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: I think the justices chosen easy to administer rule over
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: a just rule.
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 3: Oh, I don't even know that case by name some.
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 1: CHOI right, sorry, Stephen, Let's see you have.
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 3: A lawyer, I just play one in class, so you.
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 1: Have Jago with him, says Do you think that because
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: we have Nazi Germany as an example, Gestapo Gestapa like
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: formations like ice can only get so far before they
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: fa they fall to bits.
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 3: I don't think it has to do with the exam.
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 3: I don't know, I'm not I don't see how the
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 3: example the history their helps particularly. I mean, I think
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 3: you have to like what's going on these days, like
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 3: what are the ideas and the attitudes underneath it that
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 3: are generating it and generating a lot of support for it, right,
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 3: And the underlying ideas again go back to the tribalism,
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 3: the hatred of certain people, the resentments that again have
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 3: been bred by altruism and by a collective estate over
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 3: the years, such as the people feel you know, many
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 3: people seem to feel that immigrants are taking their jobs
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 3: and that sort of thing. But I guess it's not
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 3: clear to me what lessons there would be just from
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 3: the Gestapo or the Nazis as to the limits of this.
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 3: I think the limits are going to be more whether
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 3: there are limits, and I do think ultimately it will fail,
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 3: but but it's going to be a while in the ultimately,
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 3: because it's a matter of people seeing better ideas for
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 3: just understanding the rights of individuals.
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And it goes against so much of what
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: America used to be. That's some people. Some people will
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 1: wake up. Some people are waking up to the evil
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: of it.
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 3: Some are Yeah, I mean, and I'm seeing like this
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 3: is what we've become with, this is who we are now,
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 3: and it's.
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 1: Like no, yeah, yeah, right. We got one last question
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 1: from p Gupta. Have the good folks, said IJ and
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: Pacific Legal Foundation read your Judicial Review book.
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 3: I don't think many of them have, but I know
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 3: a few have. But thank you. Thank you for the question,
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 3: but thank you also for bringing us to a bright light.
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 3: I think both PLF and IJ and some of you
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 3: may know, I recently, about a year ago, joined the
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 3: board of the Institute for Justice, and I'm so proud
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 3: to be associated with them and I'm so like. Both
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 3: organizations do such great actual legal work making progress for
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 3: all of our rights, for the rights of their clients.
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 3: And you know PLF was in on the tariff's case
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 3: the other day and they had brought one too that
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 3: was consolidated. But both organizations. I've met several people at
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 3: both and more so I j but I know some
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 3: of the people. They do such great work and they
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 3: really do give you like they win cases, they win
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 3: liberties back, they win constitutionalism back for real breathing human beings,
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 3: and that is good for all of us who aren't
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 3: parties even to those cases. And you know, I know
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 3: Larry Saltzman and Simpson. I think I've read my book,
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 3: so I know a few people have read my book
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 3: a few bit of it sort of they just want
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 3: you to be an originalist and be done with it.
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 3: And it's like, no, I'm sorry, close but so far.
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 3: So I'll try to get more of them to read it.
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 3: But thank you for the question.
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: So Andrew has one more. He says, when asked if
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: she'd ever revised the Constitution, Rance said, that's a hard
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: job for a great philosopher of law, which you wouldn't
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: imagine doing sort of at home between other jobs. He
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: says terror deserves say, if it ever is revised.
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 3: Well, thanks, thank you. I appreciate that. Uh yeah, that.
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 3: I gotta figure out profiling first.
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 2: You know, I start small.
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 3: I gotta I have these little pieces to put together.
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 3: But but it's it's it's very impressive that constitution, you know,
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 3: like it's not perfect, but it's very impressive.
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 2: And God, and.
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 3: You know, here's the thing it comes back to. But
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 3: people can't, like you can't make people true to the constitution,
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 3: Like you can't legalize in some way or institutionalize good
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 3: faith and honesty. And if people don't care about liberty,
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 3: then there's no constitution that can save them, right, I mean,
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 3: we have this constitution and look where we've you know,
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 3: what we've descended to for a long time. And this
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 3: is not just a couple of administrations.
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 1: For a long time. I mean, it's amazing how well
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 1: it's held up in spite of all the rotten philosophy
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 1: of the last two hundred years. Oh, it hasn't had defenders.
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 1: It's not like the constitutions had big defenders over the
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 1: last two hundred years.
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 3: And it's taught no I mean back in the nineteenth century.
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 3: It still had some good ones, you know. But yeah, yeah,
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 3: it's been hard.
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: Good, well, this has been fun.
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 2: Okay, thank you all very much for the question.
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 3: I really appreciate all those questions.
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: At your own Thank you, and thank you guys. I
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 1: will see you all tomorrow for another episode.
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 2: Have a great night, good night, Thank you all. All right,
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 2: come to Texas, come to Austin, Right, all right,