Latest / Yaron Brook Show / Live from London (Sept 16, 2026) | Yaron Brook Show

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Live from London (Sept 16, 2026) | Yaron Brook Show · Yaron Brook Show

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Speaker 1: The radical, fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights.
0:14
Speaker 1: This is the Yaron Brook Show. Alright everybody, welcome to
0:21
Speaker 1: Yaron Brook Show on this Wednesday, Saturday, Wednesday, September 16th.
0:27
Speaker 1: I'm tired. Hope everybody's having a great week. I am
0:33
Speaker 1: in London, as the title would suggest, and I apologize
0:37
Speaker 1: for not doing more shows, but it's been busy, and
0:41
Speaker 1: even today, doing this show, I'm tired, and I have
0:49
Speaker 1: not been following the news, so it's going to be
0:51
Speaker 1: difficult for me to do a big news show, so
0:54
Speaker 1: I thought I would do a few things. One is
0:58
Speaker 1: I'll update you on what I'm doing here in London
1:01
Speaker 1: and what's going on and what is happening. And the
1:10
Speaker 1: other is we'll talk about maybe some stuff that's going
1:16
Speaker 1: on in the Middle East. And of course, I am
1:20
Speaker 1: available to answer your questions. So feel free to ask
1:28
Speaker 1: them and using the super chat and I'm happy to
1:32
Speaker 1: answer any questions that you have. Those of you on
1:36
Speaker 1: the chat, I'll just say that repeating the same thing
1:41
Speaker 1: over and over and over again does not make your
1:46
Speaker 1: case stronger. It actually does the opposite. It makes your
1:49
Speaker 1: case weaker. I'm less likely to do something that you
1:52
Speaker 1: asked me to do if you are just you know
1:57
Speaker 1: repetition is repetitious and obnoxious and uh and uh yeah
2:03
Speaker 1: so for what it's worth those of you who are
2:06
Speaker 1: actually listening uh all right uh again uh encourage you
2:11
Speaker 1: to um encourage you to ask questions and uh shape
2:18
Speaker 1: the show uh this will be i think a shorter
2:20
Speaker 1: show than usual just because again i'm pretty tight so
2:23
Speaker 1: i'm in i'm in london and for a few days
2:27
Speaker 1: to film some documentary, some documentaries. The documentaries are going
2:32
Speaker 1: to be, they're going to be three or four of these.
2:37
Speaker 1: We'll see how it ends up, but we've so far
2:41
Speaker 1: recorded material for two documentaries, and we've done it live
2:46
Speaker 1: out in the field, out in the city of London,
2:50
Speaker 1: and the two documentaries that we are planning right now
2:53
Speaker 1: for sure, and then there'll be Potentially some others. We're
2:56
Speaker 1: going to studio tomorrow and Friday to do a lot
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Speaker 1: more recording. But the two documentaries that are for sure
3:02
Speaker 1: and that we've recorded a lot of content for already.
3:05
Speaker 1: One is going to be on Marx, on Karl Marx.
3:08
Speaker 1: So this is a documentary that will document his life
3:12
Speaker 1: and some of his ideas. It'll be a short documentary.
3:15
Speaker 1: But it will be, you know, today, for example, it'll
3:19
Speaker 1: be an example. We visited, well, yesterday and today. Visited
3:23
Speaker 1: a number of places. Marx lived in London, telling his
3:26
Speaker 1: story and kind of the story about his life here,
3:35
Speaker 1: which is quite interesting. We also went to Marx's grave.
3:41
Speaker 1: It's a pretty imposing and impressive grave. It's got a
3:45
Speaker 1: massive bust of Marx on the top of the grave.
3:48
Speaker 1: I don't know if you've ever seen pictures of this,
3:50
Speaker 1: but quite impressive. You know, it is interesting that they
3:57
Speaker 1: charge money to enter the whole graveyard because of the
4:05
Speaker 1: Marx grave there. So somebody, some capitalist is making money
4:08
Speaker 1: off of Marx's grave. I find that kind of interesting.
4:12
Speaker 1: Maybe it's not a capitalist. Maybe it's a city. I
4:14
Speaker 1: don't know. But the grave site, I have to say this,
4:19
Speaker 1: the graveyard is beautiful. it's one of the prettiest I've seen. Uh, not,
4:26
Speaker 1: you know, primarily because it's, it's in this, uh, really
4:30
Speaker 1: green area with beautiful trees and, and it's kind of
4:34
Speaker 1: hilly and, uh, it's very pretty. So, uh, Karl Marx
4:38
Speaker 1: could not have chosen a prettier place to be buried. Uh, he's, it, it,
4:43
Speaker 1: it's quite nice. There's a park next door. Anyway, we
4:46
Speaker 1: did quite a few bits on Karl Marx at his gravesite. Um,
4:52
Speaker 1: As you can imagine, I'm not particularly positive about Karl Marx.
5:00
Speaker 1: The documentary is going to be a critical documentary of Marx.
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Speaker 1: But it's going to be high production quality. I think
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Speaker 1: the content will be high quality. And yeah, I'm looking
5:14
Speaker 1: forward to it. I'm looking forward to you guys seeing
5:16
Speaker 1: it and giving us feedback on it. But it will
5:20
Speaker 1: be available towards the end of the year we should
5:25
Speaker 1: finish all the filming in the next four days. The
5:27
Speaker 1: second one, second documentary, is going to be about the
5:33
Speaker 1: question of why capitalism is not successful. And not successful,
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Speaker 1: not in the economic sense, obviously it's successful there, or
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Speaker 1: the political sense, but in the sense of convincing people.
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Speaker 1: Why people are unconvinced by capitalism? Why is it such
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Speaker 1: that it's such a struggle to get, you know, pro-free
5:53
Speaker 1: market ideas into the culture. And, um, so we're talking
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Speaker 1: about capitalism, which means, uh, we've, uh, we've shot, uh,
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Speaker 1: we've shot in front of the London, uh, original London
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Speaker 1: Stock Exchange. Uh, we've, uh, we've done, uh, yesterday we
6:11
Speaker 1: did a shoot, um, at the Royal Academy where, just
6:16
Speaker 1: outside the Royal Academy, where you have the sculptures of, uh,
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Speaker 1: Adam Smith and John Locke. So a little bit of
6:26
Speaker 1: Adam Smith and John Locke will be in this. We've
6:31
Speaker 1: been to the city of London, and you get some
6:34
Speaker 1: good shots of the city, the financial center of London,
6:41
Speaker 1: and everything around there. So that is some of what
6:48
Speaker 1: we've shot so far. You know, it's interesting when you
6:53
Speaker 1: do a documentary with filmmakers, they want at least three
6:56
Speaker 1: takes on every scene. There's a script. There's an order.
7:01
Speaker 1: It's very different than how I usually do anything, but
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Speaker 1: it's a lot of fun. I'm doing it with Nikos.
7:06
Speaker 1: So Nikos is with me. A lot of this is
7:09
Speaker 1: me and Nikos in dialogue and talking to one another.
7:13
Speaker 1: I think in studio tomorrow and on Friday. Okay. is
7:19
Speaker 1: going to be a lot of fun. We're going to
7:21
Speaker 1: kind of do a lot more of the theoretical stuff,
7:23
Speaker 1: less of the biographical and less of the kind of
7:26
Speaker 1: the visual and more of the intellectual material. So I'm
7:30
Speaker 1: looking forward to that. And so those two documentaries, I think,
7:35
Speaker 1: will be complete. I know will be completed on by
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Speaker 1: Friday in terms of shooting. And then there'll be editing
7:45
Speaker 1: and post-production and I'll put music to it. I mean,
7:47
Speaker 1: these are going to be really nice docs. All of
7:51
Speaker 1: those people out there who supported and who gave money
7:55
Speaker 1: in support of creating these documentaries just know that they
7:59
Speaker 1: are happening. We are doing them and they're happening. And
8:03
Speaker 1: the perks that I promised, like a Zoom call with
8:08
Speaker 1: me and Nikos and the producer, the director, that will
8:11
Speaker 1: all happen once the documentaries are about to be launched,
8:14
Speaker 1: once we're ready with the documentaries. We'll also plan some
8:18
Speaker 1: social media campaigns around this, really try to see if
8:21
Speaker 1: we can get a real audience. The third documentary will
8:25
Speaker 1: probably be a documentary where basically Nikos asks me questions about,
8:31
Speaker 1: I think, my life, my career, objectivism. So I don't know.
8:35
Speaker 1: There's no script for that. Nikos has some surprises up
8:38
Speaker 1: his sleeve, I think. So we'll find out tomorrow and
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Speaker 1: Friday what he has planned for that. And I'm hoping
8:45
Speaker 1: we have some time to shoot some content around beauty.
8:50
Speaker 1: And the question is, can capitalism be beautiful? And so
8:55
Speaker 1: maybe talk a little bit about architecture, about what architecture,
9:02
Speaker 1: what I think a city looks like, what do the
9:05
Speaker 1: aesthetics look like under capitalism? And with the counterpoint, which
9:12
Speaker 1: is typical out there, that capitalism is ugly. Capitalism produces ugly.
9:16
Speaker 1: Capitalism appeals to the lowest common denominator. You hear a
9:20
Speaker 1: lot of that kind of stuff out there constantly. So
9:24
Speaker 1: it'll be accounted to that. So I'm hoping we get
9:26
Speaker 1: to that. That's kind of fun and interesting. But I
9:31
Speaker 1: think we're going to get a lot of content out
9:34
Speaker 1: of here and be able to do some interesting stuff
9:37
Speaker 1: with it. Again, I'll remind you guys. that supported this,
9:43
Speaker 1: thank you. I want to thank you again, and it
9:46
Speaker 1: couldn't have been possible without you. I think we're going
9:49
Speaker 1: to get a lot of content for relatively low sum.
9:54
Speaker 1: That is, usually these kind of, you know, I've been
9:57
Speaker 1: involved in documentaries in the past, uh, documentaries on Ayn Rand,
10:01
Speaker 1: on Atlas Shrug, documentaries on the financial crisis and, um,
10:05
Speaker 1: usury and money lending and all of that. And, and
10:09
Speaker 1: those documentaries are well into the six figures in terms
10:12
Speaker 1: of how much they cost. And here we're doing something with, uh,
10:16
Speaker 1: you know, $ 15, 000 and, um, I think it's going to
10:20
Speaker 1: look really good. So I'm excited. I'm excited by it
10:23
Speaker 1: and looking forward to getting the videos, putting them out there.
10:28
Speaker 1: And then if the videos are out there, then they succeed.
10:39
Speaker 1: If we get a big audience for the videos and
10:41
Speaker 1: they're successful and you guys are happy with those, then
10:44
Speaker 1: I might come back to you with some ideas for
10:47
Speaker 1: other documentaries. I mean, if this is a way to
10:50
Speaker 1: grow the channel, to get more visibility, and there really
10:53
Speaker 1: is a response out there in the marketplace, that is,
10:55
Speaker 1: there's real demand for this in the marketplace on YouTube,
10:58
Speaker 1: then we will do more of these. I mean, I
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Speaker 1: think they're very cost-effective. Then the question is, well, we'll
11:05
Speaker 1: know if they're cost-effective once we know whether they're effective.
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Speaker 1: They're not expensive, that I know. All right. What else
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Speaker 1: do we want to talk about? So that's what I'm
11:23
Speaker 1: doing here in London. My schedule's been pretty intense because,
11:26
Speaker 1: you know, over the weekend I saw, yeah, so I
11:29
Speaker 1: want to tell you what happened over the weekend. Over
11:31
Speaker 1: the weekend I went to see Carmen, the opera. It's
11:36
Speaker 1: always amazing. It's always amazing to see opera. Carmen is
11:42
Speaker 1: a beautiful opera and the performance was really good and
11:46
Speaker 1: really enjoyable. It wasn't a big opera house. It was
11:50
Speaker 1: in a small music hall. It wasn't fully staged, but
11:55
Speaker 1: it was staged enough. The orchestra was relatively small. But
11:59
Speaker 1: given that it's a small concert hall, the volume was fine.
12:03
Speaker 1: But overall, it was fantastic. The last night we were
12:09
Speaker 1: in Barcelona, on Sunday we flew to Florence. My wife
12:16
Speaker 1: is spending two weeks in Florence and taking a sculpture course.
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Speaker 1: So she is doing portrait sculpture. So we will get
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Speaker 1: a sculpture at the end of this. I've already seen
12:27
Speaker 1: kind of the early rough, what she's doing. It's going
12:29
Speaker 1: to be gorgeous. I mean, really, really, really gorgeous. And
12:33
Speaker 1: if you haven't seen my wife's sculpture, she's pretty incredible.
12:37
Speaker 1: And she's a pretty incredible sculptor. So I'm excited for that.
12:42
Speaker 1: But she's doing that. When she sculpts, she's all in, right?
12:49
Speaker 1: That's all she thinks about. That's all she does. I
12:52
Speaker 1: figured I'd get out of her way. So I came
12:54
Speaker 1: to London to do the documentary. I'll spend four days
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Speaker 1: here with the documentary. Then on Sunday, I'm speaking at
13:03
Speaker 1: the Arts and Ideas Festival here. How the Light Gets In,
13:10
Speaker 1: it's called. How the Light Gets In. It's a festival.
13:12
Speaker 1: I'm doing two debates, one on freedom, and one on democracy.
13:16
Speaker 1: I'm against democracy. And that is going to be fun.
13:25
Speaker 1: I meet a lot of intellectuals who disagree with me.
13:28
Speaker 1: It's generally an event run by people who come from
13:33
Speaker 1: the left, and most of the participants are from the left.
13:36
Speaker 1: I am one of the representatives of an alternative point
13:39
Speaker 1: of view. But there are others. I mean, Diderot McCluskey,
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Speaker 1: for example, is going to be there as a free
13:46
Speaker 1: market economist. And so it's going to be a fun event.
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Speaker 1: That Sunday, then Monday, I fly to Tbilisi, to Georgia,
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Speaker 1: where I'll be giving at least two lectures at universities
14:00
Speaker 1: and meeting some other Georgian intellectuals, getting an update on
14:06
Speaker 1: the struggles the Georgians are having with basically Russia. and
14:12
Speaker 1: meeting up with a lot of good Georgian friends. I've
14:18
Speaker 1: been engaged with around objectivism and about work, about free
14:23
Speaker 1: markets for years now. So I'll be spending a few
14:26
Speaker 1: days in Georgia, and then I'm back in Florence next
14:29
Speaker 1: week on Thursday. And then we fly to Madrid on Sunday,
14:35
Speaker 1: and we spend four days in Madrid, and then we
14:37
Speaker 1: fly home on the 1st of October. So I'll be
14:41
Speaker 1: home in a few weeks. Of course, once I get home,
14:45
Speaker 1: we'll be able to get into a regular show schedule.
14:50
Speaker 1: Until then, it's going to be rough because yesterday, like yesterday,
14:54
Speaker 1: we finished shooting at around 4. And then from 5
14:57
Speaker 1: to 7, I taught a class for the Ironman Institute.
15:00
Speaker 1: And by the time I finished that class, I don't
15:02
Speaker 1: think I did very well teaching that class because I
15:04
Speaker 1: was so exhausted. And then by the time that class ended,
15:07
Speaker 1: I just dropped. I just dropped. so there's no way
15:11
Speaker 1: to do a show. The day before that, I flew
15:14
Speaker 1: in from London. Again, it was too late to do
15:16
Speaker 1: a show. Today, I'm sneaking this one in. It's not
15:22
Speaker 1: going to be a very long show, but I thought
15:25
Speaker 1: I'd do something. I know Michael was complaining that maybe
15:30
Speaker 1: I'm never going to do a show again, so I
15:32
Speaker 1: figured Michael's an important enough supporter of the show for
15:35
Speaker 1: me to make the effort and do a show today.
15:38
Speaker 1: And then we'll see. Tomorrow, probably no show, maybe Friday,
15:41
Speaker 1: maybe Saturday, maybe Sunday to those three days. I hope
15:44
Speaker 1: to do shows. And then in Tbilisi, I don't know
15:46
Speaker 1: what the internet is going to be like. And it's
15:49
Speaker 1: a big time difference. So it's three hours. It's three
15:53
Speaker 1: hours ahead of London. That makes it, um, eight hours
15:59
Speaker 1: ahead of the East coast. That that's pretty. Yeah. So
16:03
Speaker 1: we'll see. We'll see. I, I, I will make, I
16:06
Speaker 1: will make the effort. Um, And then Madrid, again, maybe,
16:10
Speaker 1: depending on the hotel and everything else that's going on.
16:14
Speaker 1: But definitely once we get home, once we get into October,
16:18
Speaker 1: we'll do a more regular schedule. Of course, contingent on
16:21
Speaker 1: the fact that in late October, I start traveling again.
16:25
Speaker 1: And basically, last two weeks in October and the first
16:28
Speaker 1: two weeks of November, I'm on the road the entire time.
16:32
Speaker 1: For basically a month, I'm on the road. And that'll
16:35
Speaker 1: mean very few shows. All right. Let me just address this.
16:42
Speaker 1: People are saying, you know, we've got a bunch of
16:46
Speaker 1: trollers who want me to debate this guy Zulu something.
16:54
Speaker 1: To debate Zulu. We've got other people who are a
16:57
Speaker 1: little bit more respectful asking me to debate Zulu. There's
17:00
Speaker 1: no reason for me to debate Zulu. I have no
17:03
Speaker 1: real interest in debating Zulu. It doesn't buy me any audience.
17:08
Speaker 1: I don't gain anything from it. You know, the people who,
17:13
Speaker 1: particularly the big fans of Zulu who are on here,
17:19
Speaker 1: they think Zulu's going to win, and I don't think
17:21
Speaker 1: anything I say is going to convince them during debate otherwise.
17:25
Speaker 1: So who am I convincing? Who am I attracting to
17:30
Speaker 1: my channel? You know, a bunch of anarchists? I don't
17:34
Speaker 1: think they're convincible. They've all read Ayn Rand. They've seen
17:38
Speaker 1: my past debates. I've done at least two debates, formal
17:44
Speaker 1: debates that I've done that are on YouTube, one in
17:46
Speaker 1: Poland and one with Brian Kaplan. There's another, you know,
17:50
Speaker 1: back and forth a little bit with Mike Malice on anarchy.
17:54
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not going to say anything different than
17:57
Speaker 1: I said in those debates. So watch those debates. If
18:01
Speaker 1: you're convinced, great. If you're not convinced, so be it.
18:05
Speaker 1: I also, I don't like the topic. The topic just
18:08
Speaker 1: bores me. I think, I mean, I have to be honest. Well,
18:13
Speaker 1: I'm always honest. I think the whole anarchy issue is nonsense.
18:20
Speaker 1: I think to be an anarchist is to be divorced
18:23
Speaker 1: from reality. Whoops, somebody's calling me in the middle of
18:28
Speaker 1: a show. Go away. I think it's a certain, you know,
18:34
Speaker 1: a certain... What do you call it? It's a sense
18:39
Speaker 1: in which it's a form of being separate from reality.
18:45
Speaker 1: It's a consequence of pure rationalism. And, you know, it's
18:53
Speaker 1: very hard to convince somebody who's a rationalist because you're
18:56
Speaker 1: pointing to reality and they're not interested in reality. They're
18:58
Speaker 1: interested in the floating abstractions. So... It doesn't interest me.
19:04
Speaker 1: It's not challenging. It's not that interesting. And we've got
19:10
Speaker 1: bigger battles to fight. I mean, I've got bigger battles
19:13
Speaker 1: to fight. I think I've got more interesting battles to
19:15
Speaker 1: fight and much more life-affirming issues to debate. If you
19:21
Speaker 1: think you're an objectivist and you're an anarchist, then you're
19:24
Speaker 1: confused is what I can say. And, you know, at best,
19:30
Speaker 1: you're confused. And I encourage you to, you know, Ayn
19:33
Speaker 1: Rand wrote about anarchy and capitalism as an unknown ideal.
19:36
Speaker 1: If you think that objectivism is, quote, the truth, you're confused.
19:41
Speaker 1: Objectivism is the name Ayn Rand gave to her philosophy.
19:45
Speaker 1: Whether her philosophy is true or not is a different question.
19:49
Speaker 1: but her philosophy is objectivism. In that sense, it's a
19:52
Speaker 1: closed system. It's a proper name, not for the truth,
19:57
Speaker 1: not for everything true in philosophy, or not for even
20:01
Speaker 1: everything based on Ayn Rand's ideas. I mean, she was
20:03
Speaker 1: very explicit that she did not want people using the
20:09
Speaker 1: term objectivism for their own ideas that she had not
20:13
Speaker 1: vetted in terms of whether they're consistent with her ideas
20:15
Speaker 1: or not. And because she couldn't be, because she would
20:19
Speaker 1: be dead, the only way she could protect her ideas
20:24
Speaker 1: and separate them from the ideas of her followers is
20:28
Speaker 1: to name her ideas. That's objectivism. So you want to
20:32
Speaker 1: be a Randian, you want to be influenced by objectivism,
20:36
Speaker 1: but an anarchist, go for it. but you're not an objectivist. Uh,
20:40
Speaker 1: not in the sense of adhering to objectivism, who I,
20:44
Speaker 1: who philosophy. And that's fine. I, I, you know, I'm
20:47
Speaker 1: not big on, you have to be an objectivist or, or, or,
20:50
Speaker 1: or that's the most important thing. I'm, I believe in
20:53
Speaker 1: seeking the truth and the truth is what matters at
20:55
Speaker 1: the end of the day, not the label you put
20:57
Speaker 1: on that. So I'm a, I'm a truth seeker. I
21:00
Speaker 1: think anarchy is bad. It's anti-human. It's anti-human life. And
21:07
Speaker 1: that's why I oppose it. Um, Let's see, what else
21:12
Speaker 1: did I want to say about this? Yeah, so there's
21:20
Speaker 1: no self-interest. I have no self-interest in debating Zulu. There's
21:24
Speaker 1: nothing for me to gain. Right? Nothing for me to gain.
21:33
Speaker 1: And if you're convinced by Zulu, then fine. I mean,
21:37
Speaker 1: so be it. You know, I don't think Me debating
21:40
Speaker 1: him will change that. I really don't. Again, if you're
21:45
Speaker 1: interested in my arguments against anarchy, go watch my videos
21:50
Speaker 1: on anarchy. If you're interested in Ayn Rand's issue with anarchy,
21:56
Speaker 1: read The Nature of Government in Capitalism, The Unknown Deal. Oh,
22:02
Speaker 1: I've got an essay. There you go. Even better than
22:05
Speaker 1: my debates. Don Watkins and I wrote an essay. an extensive,
22:10
Speaker 1: long essay. Brian Kaplan actually complained about how long it was.
22:15
Speaker 1: A long essay on anarchy. Check out the essay. So
22:21
Speaker 1: read the essay, and if you don't agree with something,
22:24
Speaker 1: if Zulu has convinced you that something in that essay
22:28
Speaker 1: is wrong, then come here and ask a super chat.
22:32
Speaker 1: And debate me on the super chat. So, you know,
22:38
Speaker 1: instead of putting a debate together, back and forth and
22:41
Speaker 1: back and forth, which I don't think you learn much
22:42
Speaker 1: from a debate. A debate is basically a marketing mechanism
22:48
Speaker 1: to get to new people, and I don't think I'd
22:50
Speaker 1: get to new people with Zulu. So read my essay.
22:54
Speaker 1: It's on Don Watkins' Substack. Check out Don Watkins' Substack.
22:58
Speaker 1: It's free. You don't have to pay anything. Read the essay,
23:04
Speaker 1: and then once you've read the essay, if you have questions...
23:08
Speaker 1: If Zulu has challenges to that essay, if he disagrees
23:12
Speaker 1: with somebody, something on that essay, post it here on
23:14
Speaker 1: the Super Chat. Post it here on the Super Chat.
23:24
Speaker 1: Somebody says, I don't think it's about convincing anarchists. It's
23:26
Speaker 1: about covering why objectivism is not rationalist in its approach
23:30
Speaker 1: to rights. A lot of people do not know about
23:33
Speaker 1: this topic. Yeah, but again... I've got a whole essay
23:38
Speaker 1: about this topic, you know, and I don't need to
23:41
Speaker 1: do a debate in order to show why objectivism is
23:44
Speaker 1: not rationalistic about this topic. So, I agree that there's
23:49
Speaker 1: value in covering it. I think I've covered it. Wrote
23:51
Speaker 1: an essay, did two debates, discussed it with Malice, with
23:56
Speaker 1: Michael Malice. What else is there to do? What else
24:02
Speaker 1: is there to do? So, um, Yeah, that's what I
24:12
Speaker 1: have to say about Zulu. Okay. So, again, I have
24:17
Speaker 1: nothing to gain from this and no benefit. And objectivism,
24:20
Speaker 1: I don't think, has anything to gain from doing this. But, again,
24:24
Speaker 1: read my essay. All right. I want to say something
24:28
Speaker 1: about what's going on in the Middle East because it's
24:30
Speaker 1: kind of at the periphery. I've read some about it.
24:33
Speaker 1: But it's so shocking and so... indicative of everything I've
24:38
Speaker 1: been saying for years now about Trump and this administration
24:42
Speaker 1: and the complete and utter failure of Trump. And that
24:47
Speaker 1: I have to say something about it because it's going
24:49
Speaker 1: to get stale soon. As you know, well, I don't
24:53
Speaker 1: know if you know, because I don't know if you
24:54
Speaker 1: follow the news when Yaron Brook is not doing the news.
24:59
Speaker 1: The Houthis in Yemen have now occupied basically the entire
25:04
Speaker 1: Red Sea coast of Yemen. They launched an offensive a
25:08
Speaker 1: few days ago, and they have been victorious. They've not
25:11
Speaker 1: only covered the coast, they've covered some islands. They basically
25:14
Speaker 1: now control the strait, Bab al-Mandar, the strait that leads
25:19
Speaker 1: from the Gulf of Eden or from the Indian Ocean
25:23
Speaker 1: into the Red Sea, ultimately the Suez Canal, or to
25:27
Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia's western shores and into Israel's southern port in Eilat.
25:37
Speaker 1: At the same time, they've also been launching systematic, regular
25:42
Speaker 1: ballistic missile attacks against the Saudis and actually doing real
25:45
Speaker 1: damage to Saudi oil facilities. It's one of the reasons
25:49
Speaker 1: oil prices have spiked to well above 100 over the
25:52
Speaker 1: last few days is because of the disruptive nature of
25:58
Speaker 1: these attacks on Saudi Arabia. They have also said that
26:02
Speaker 1: they will not allow any Saudi ships through Saudi the
26:07
Speaker 1: strait they will not allow Saudi ships to travel in
26:10
Speaker 1: the Red Sea now in any sane time the United
26:19
Speaker 1: States would not allow this not only would it encourage
26:24
Speaker 1: the Saudis to fight back and destroy the Houthis the
26:28
Speaker 1: United States would probably help the Saudis do it I
26:31
Speaker 1: mean the strategic damage done by allowing the Houthis to
26:36
Speaker 1: control The straight to the Red Sea is unfathomable. It's
26:41
Speaker 1: equivalent to allowing the Iranians to control the state of Hormuz.
26:46
Speaker 1: The Houthis are an Islamist, Iranian-backed group that does what
26:53
Speaker 1: the Iranian tells them. The Iranian tell them. And again,
26:56
Speaker 1: they're inspired by Islamism, the enemy of the United States,
26:59
Speaker 1: the explicit enemy of the United States. And yet the
27:03
Speaker 1: United States is allowing them to take control and to
27:07
Speaker 1: threaten global shipping, including U.S. boats, including Israeli ships. And
27:16
Speaker 1: at the same time, the United States is completely abandoning,
27:21
Speaker 1: and Trump administration has been very explicit about this, completely
27:24
Speaker 1: abandoning Saudi Arabia. The Saudis have asked for help on
27:30
Speaker 1: several occasions. Trump has said no. Um, the Saudis, now
27:37
Speaker 1: his attitude towards Saudi Arabia has already driven them into
27:39
Speaker 1: the hands of the Turks and the Pakistanis. Now, they
27:42
Speaker 1: have a defense agreement with the Turks and Pakistanis. They
27:44
Speaker 1: went to the Turks and Pakistanis and asked for help.
27:47
Speaker 1: They told them no as well. The only people supposedly
27:50
Speaker 1: helping the Saudis with intelligence, not with live fire, are
27:53
Speaker 1: the Israelis, who they don't have any relationship with, any
27:59
Speaker 1: political relationship with. I mean, this is just, it is
28:02
Speaker 1: really mind-blowing that by the time this war with Iran
28:06
Speaker 1: is over, it appears, the United States is going to
28:10
Speaker 1: leave the Middle East in the hands of Iran and
28:14
Speaker 1: the Houthis. And for all we know, the Hezbollah in Lebanon,
28:22
Speaker 1: you know, they are going to manage to save the
28:26
Speaker 1: Iranians and save the Islamists of the Middle East. Now,
28:31
Speaker 1: things could change. I mean, maybe Trump is waiting until
28:35
Speaker 1: after the midterm elections and then he's going to bomb
28:37
Speaker 1: the hell out of Iran and then bomb the hell
28:39
Speaker 1: out of the Houthis. Now, I also read today, according
28:43
Speaker 1: to Reuters, today, breaking news, I guess, is that the
28:46
Speaker 1: Trump administration actually has a deal with the Houthis. And
28:50
Speaker 1: the deal is the United States will not intervene to
28:54
Speaker 1: help the Saudis or to stop them from taking over
28:56
Speaker 1: the rest of Yemen. And in exchange, The Houthis promise
29:01
Speaker 1: to allow all shipping through the strait other than Saudi ships.
29:07
Speaker 1: You can't have deals with the devil. You can't believe
29:17
Speaker 1: a word they tell you. So yes, right now, ships
29:20
Speaker 1: are going through the strait except the Saudi ships. Could
29:24
Speaker 1: they change their mind tomorrow? Could they change their mind
29:27
Speaker 1: in a month? Would they change their mind if the
29:30
Speaker 1: United States attacked Iran? You're giving them this incredible power
29:38
Speaker 1: over all prices, over shipping global shipping all in the
29:45
Speaker 1: name of what so yes you know this is more
29:54
Speaker 1: American defeat this is more American surrender This is more
30:00
Speaker 1: Americans accepting a new global order, which is not favorable
30:05
Speaker 1: to the United States. And in spite of Iran's weakness,
30:09
Speaker 1: in spite of how much they've been weakened in war
30:12
Speaker 1: and how much they were weakened economically, giving them a victory,
30:16
Speaker 1: you know, victory out of their throes of defeat. They
30:20
Speaker 1: were defeated. And Trump and his incompetence and pragmatic short-term
30:26
Speaker 1: stupidity is... making the Iranians and their allies whole. Who
30:36
Speaker 1: knows what's going to happen to Saudi Arabia? All of
30:39
Speaker 1: this is making MBS look very weak inside Saudi Arabia.
30:44
Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia could make a turn in a number of
30:47
Speaker 1: different directions. It could become much more fundamentalist, much more Islamist,
30:53
Speaker 1: much worse for America. It could, I guess, move in
30:57
Speaker 1: the direction of more secular society, but that's unlikely. MBS
31:05
Speaker 1: is probably the most secular ruler Saudi will ever have. So...
31:16
Speaker 1: So it's... Again, it's a major, major calamity for the
31:26
Speaker 1: United States. Saudi Arabia is not a good country. It's
31:32
Speaker 1: not a long-term friendly country. But it's an ally. It's
31:37
Speaker 1: right now working against the enemies of the United States. And,
31:44
Speaker 1: you know, it's not so... The Russia, which ultimately turned communist...
31:49
Speaker 1: I mean, MBS is not an Islamist. He's not an Islamist.
31:56
Speaker 1: Whatever he might be. I don't think he's that. So
32:01
Speaker 1: to leave him out to dry like this, after giving
32:04
Speaker 1: them security guarantees, after the United States makes all these promises,
32:08
Speaker 1: after the United States is supposed to be there to
32:12
Speaker 1: protect against our enemies, it's not just Saudi enemies, our enemies,
32:18
Speaker 1: it's not good. And it's again illustrative of the fact
32:24
Speaker 1: that there's really no no thinking going on behind kind
32:28
Speaker 1: of the American foreign policy. Yeah. All right. So I
32:39
Speaker 1: want to say that about society. One other thing, one
32:41
Speaker 1: other news story I want to do, and then we
32:45
Speaker 1: can talk about, I'll go to the Super Chats, because, again,
32:49
Speaker 1: today's show will be a relatively short show. The other story,
32:55
Speaker 1: of course, that was big, has been big in the
32:56
Speaker 1: last few days, and I think is going to continue
32:59
Speaker 1: with us for a long, long time, is the AI story.
33:03
Speaker 1: More and more AI executives are coming out, and they're
33:06
Speaker 1: requesting regulations, and they're requesting controls, and they keep saying
33:14
Speaker 1: that they can't control the models, and so the latest
33:17
Speaker 1: is that the Anthropic and OpenAI have agreed, have said,
33:23
Speaker 1: that all the frontier models should slow down, slow down development,
33:28
Speaker 1: and that ultimately the government in some way or another
33:31
Speaker 1: needs to regulate the speed by which these models are
33:33
Speaker 1: developed because if they develop too fast, they will destroy humanity,
33:38
Speaker 1: they will kill us all. I think somebody, they put
33:40
Speaker 1: a probability in how likely is it that AI kills
33:45
Speaker 1: all of human beings by 2030 or whatever the number is.
33:50
Speaker 1: Elon Musk came out in support of this, of slowing
33:53
Speaker 1: down and of government regulations. So not a hero when
33:57
Speaker 1: it comes to all this. I think the best response
34:03
Speaker 1: to this has been from like Naval and some others
34:07
Speaker 1: basically saying, no, make the companies, make the AI companies
34:13
Speaker 1: legally responsible in a sense for things that their models do.
34:20
Speaker 1: Not that people... drive the models, but things that the
34:25
Speaker 1: models do that is destructive of rights, that is destructive
34:29
Speaker 1: of property, that is destructive of, I don't know, privacy
34:32
Speaker 1: or whatever, make them liable. So if an OpenAI agent escapes,
34:39
Speaker 1: which I guess has happened, and breaks into some other
34:42
Speaker 1: company's site and is destructive there or hacks into some
34:46
Speaker 1: site and causes damage, then OpenAI or Anthropic or whoever
34:52
Speaker 1: you know, who it is that designed the agent and
34:56
Speaker 1: had it active, they should be held responsible for any
34:59
Speaker 1: damage caused by the agent. And then let companies regulate themselves.
35:05
Speaker 1: Let companies control themselves. So, yeah, as I said, yeah,
35:22
Speaker 1: So we should, we want the government out of this.
35:31
Speaker 1: The one thing you don't want is people appointed by
35:33
Speaker 1: Trump or Biden or Kamala Harris or some future crazy
35:37
Speaker 1: Democrat or some future crazy who will pop up against
35:39
Speaker 1: you at events to be in control of which models
35:42
Speaker 1: are okay and which models are not, what should be released,
35:45
Speaker 1: what should not, what features should be there, what should not.
35:50
Speaker 1: The company should take responsibility for the product they designed
35:52
Speaker 1: for the product they release. They should be liable for it,
35:56
Speaker 1: and they should be responsible for it. We need internal regulations. Now,
36:00
Speaker 1: if there's clear identifiable risk, if there's clear identifiable violations
36:06
Speaker 1: of individual rights that you can conceive that the models
36:10
Speaker 1: would do, then legislate against that. Then, fine, have a
36:14
Speaker 1: law that says you can't do X. But I haven't
36:17
Speaker 1: seen that yet. I haven't seen an objective criteria for
36:22
Speaker 1: a model violating rights and therefore needs government intervention. So, yes, big,
36:37
Speaker 1: big push by basically the entire AI industry for more
36:41
Speaker 1: government involvement, more government regulations and to slow down. I mean,
36:45
Speaker 1: talk about divine right of stagnation and, you know, the
36:50
Speaker 1: people at the forefront of innovation. The people at the
36:55
Speaker 1: forefront of tech and AI are the ones wanting to
37:04
Speaker 1: slow it all down. And of course, it could be
37:08
Speaker 1: that they are just playing this game in order to
37:13
Speaker 1: get regulations that favor them and harm the competition. and
37:17
Speaker 1: therefore reduce the number of competitors they face. So it
37:20
Speaker 1: could be what we call regulatory capture. But it could
37:24
Speaker 1: also be that they're irrational in their views about what
37:30
Speaker 1: AI can actually do and what AI actually is, and
37:34
Speaker 1: in particular irrational about what the government should and could
37:37
Speaker 1: do generally. I think it's very indicative that anthropic and
37:42
Speaker 1: AI are both organized in kind of non-profit way. That is,
37:48
Speaker 1: they're both organized as entities that have a supposed fiduciary
37:55
Speaker 1: responsibility to quote society, to some greater good. They're not
38:03
Speaker 1: purely for profit. They're not there to be managed for
38:06
Speaker 1: the sake of shareholders. And that, I think, is indicative
38:08
Speaker 1: in terms of kind of the bias these companies bring,
38:12
Speaker 1: an anti-capitalist, anti-free market, which is the system they're using
38:18
Speaker 1: in order to make the gazillions of dollars. The founders
38:22
Speaker 1: are all, you know, various forms of, I think, leftists
38:27
Speaker 1: or rightists who, you know, they're going to land up
38:34
Speaker 1: with billions and billions and billions of dollars and it's
38:36
Speaker 1: going to be interesting to see what they do with
38:38
Speaker 1: that money. Right? All right. Uh, let's see anything else, uh,
38:51
Speaker 1: striking out there that, uh, yeah. I mean, if you
38:53
Speaker 1: have anything that you want me to talk about, the
38:56
Speaker 1: best way to do it is to, um, you know,
39:03
Speaker 1: to do a super chat. That would be the best way.
39:09
Speaker 1: All right. Um, what do we do about that? Uh,
39:18
Speaker 1: I think we will go to Super Chat now. As
39:20
Speaker 1: I said, I'm tired, so today's show will be short.
39:23
Speaker 1: I really appreciate the support on the Super Chat. You
39:26
Speaker 1: guys have been great, in particular, Natyavity Algorithm and all
39:29
Speaker 1: of you. author have been fantastic but I see Michael
39:33
Speaker 1: has been really good as well and as always and
39:36
Speaker 1: yeah your support is very very much appreciated thank you
39:44
Speaker 1: yeah I wanted to correct something I said about ARU
39:48
Speaker 1: You know, Ayn Rand Institute is a sponsor of the show,
39:50
Speaker 1: and they encourage people, particularly people who want to be graded,
39:55
Speaker 1: graded students, to sign up for ARU. You don't apply.
40:01
Speaker 1: I don't think there's an application process. You sign up,
40:04
Speaker 1: and you become an ARU student. However, I've said something
40:08
Speaker 1: about a scholarship. You apply for a scholarship, and if
40:10
Speaker 1: you get the scholarship, you get $ 500. I was wrong.
40:14
Speaker 1: The way it's going to work is this. The best students...
40:18
Speaker 1: in the ARU program, the students that identify with the
40:22
Speaker 1: most potential, maybe to become future new intellectuals, those students
40:28
Speaker 1: can get a scholarship up to $ 500, but it's up
40:33
Speaker 1: to $ 500 a month. It's not $ 500 for the program.
40:35
Speaker 1: It's up to $ 500 a month. So become a graded student.
40:47
Speaker 1: Go out there, see what you can achieve. And maybe, maybe,
40:53
Speaker 1: maybe you'll get $ 500 a month, you know, as an incentive,
40:59
Speaker 1: as a reward for being a full-time student. I know
41:03
Speaker 1: that Lincoln is going to be part of the new
41:06
Speaker 1: ARU student body, graded student body. You can also sign
41:12
Speaker 1: up as an auditor. I mean, the most exciting thing
41:14
Speaker 1: about this new program is that you start off with
41:17
Speaker 1: a three-section, three-semester course with Ankar Ghate on objectivism. So
41:25
Speaker 1: you will do a deep dive on objectivism. By the way,
41:28
Speaker 1: all you people out there who want me to debate Zulu,
41:32
Speaker 1: how about you sign up for AIU and take a
41:35
Speaker 1: real course on objectivism, somebody who actually knows what they're
41:38
Speaker 1: talking about. And then if you finish that course and
41:42
Speaker 1: you still think Zulu is right, then, you know, maybe
41:45
Speaker 1: we can talk But go study some objectivism before you
41:50
Speaker 1: pretend to understand how Zulu has integrated anarchism and objectivism,
41:55
Speaker 1: which is complete BS. Go study objectivism. Go learn. Make
42:04
Speaker 1: the effort, you know, beyond listening to podcasts. Here's one.
42:10
Speaker 1: Yuan is a fraud, fake objectivist who is scared to
42:13
Speaker 1: debate real objectivists like Liquid Zulu. on anarchism and their
42:17
Speaker 1: compatibility with objectivism. Scared, yes. Oh yeah, terrified. I'm so terrified.
42:24
Speaker 1: I cry myself to sleep at night thinking about the
42:28
Speaker 1: horrors of debating Zulu. Believe me, I'm not scared of
42:31
Speaker 1: debating anybody. I'm certainly not scared of debating Zulu. Um,
42:36
Speaker 1: I just don't see what's in it for me, as
42:38
Speaker 1: I said. The Zulu trolls are here in full force today. Um,
42:47
Speaker 1: So they are passionate, which is good. I appreciate that.
42:54
Speaker 1: They're obnoxious and impolite. That I don't appreciate. But they
42:58
Speaker 1: are passionate. That is a good thing. All right. Let's see.
43:04
Speaker 1: So yes, check out the Ayn Rand Institute's ARU. Sign
43:10
Speaker 1: up for Ankar Ghate's course. You can audit it. But
43:14
Speaker 1: What I'm really looking for, what the Institute's really looking
43:16
Speaker 1: for is graded students. And as I said, some of
43:18
Speaker 1: the graded students, the best graded students, will actually get
43:21
Speaker 1: scholarships up to $ 500 a month. All right, let's send
43:29
Speaker 1: you questions before I completely fade here. Not your average algorithm.
43:37
Speaker 1: $ 200 questions. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Well, it's
43:40
Speaker 1: one question with two parts. Part one is they say
43:44
Speaker 1: it's silly to compare Trump to Hitler, but Hitler also
43:46
Speaker 1: lost an election. They incited an insurrection. The insurrections were
43:50
Speaker 1: thrown in prison. Then Hitler won an election, pardoned the insurrectionists,
43:55
Speaker 1: recruited them, made them brown shirts. He let them loose
44:00
Speaker 1: into neighborhoods known to be populated by people who did
44:02
Speaker 1: not support him. He allowed the brown shirts to bully
44:05
Speaker 1: and intimidate people. That's all they did at first. I know,
44:09
Speaker 1: I know. You can find the parallels if you look
44:11
Speaker 1: for them. No questions. but Trump is not Hitler. Trump
44:17
Speaker 1: has not written a book articulating his plan for the
44:19
Speaker 1: country and what he wants to do with certain minorities
44:23
Speaker 1: in it. Trump has, you know, does not have the
44:29
Speaker 1: kind of stormtroopers that Hitler has. If he has, they're
44:35
Speaker 1: kind of hidden. He still hides them. They're not in
44:38
Speaker 1: uniform marching through the streets. Now, you know, you could
44:41
Speaker 1: say ISIS that But really, ICE isn't that, right? ICE
44:45
Speaker 1: is bad. I'm anti-ICE. You know that. I've talked about it.
44:49
Speaker 1: It's not the SS going through the streets. It's not Kristallnacht.
44:55
Speaker 1: It's not even close. It's bad enough, but it's not that.
45:01
Speaker 1: Trump doesn't have an agenda. What does Trump want? Hitler
45:06
Speaker 1: had an agenda. He knew exactly what he wanted. He
45:09
Speaker 1: wanted German dominance over Europe. Trump is retreating from the world.
45:13
Speaker 1: He's not very ambitious in terms of taking over the
45:15
Speaker 1: world and ruling over the world. You know, Trump is
45:25
Speaker 1: a narcissistic thug. But he's not an ambitious dictator with
45:33
Speaker 1: an agenda for changing the world. He's just not. He
45:36
Speaker 1: hates the left, kind of, but he was the left.
45:39
Speaker 1: You know, he hates the left primarily because that's what
45:43
Speaker 1: people like. That's what people gets people excited. He hates trade.
45:49
Speaker 1: That he really hates. Because we know that because that's
45:51
Speaker 1: part of his history going way back. He doesn't really
45:55
Speaker 1: even hate immigrants that much. I mean, he's married a
45:57
Speaker 1: bunch of them. So Trump is not Hitler. He's also,
46:04
Speaker 1: I mean, I'd add to this. Trump is 80 years old.
46:06
Speaker 1: Age zero. Hitler was relatively young when he became prime minister.
46:12
Speaker 1: When he became Fuhrer. he had big ambitions for a
46:16
Speaker 1: very long time. Trump is going to drop dead at
46:18
Speaker 1: some point. And his mental capabilities are already fading. And
46:24
Speaker 1: he's not the guy you should be worried about. And yeah,
46:28
Speaker 1: there are these parallels. But listen to a Hitler speech.
46:33
Speaker 1: Hitler tells you exactly what he wants to do. Trump
46:37
Speaker 1: rambles and tells stories like he told on 9-11 that
46:42
Speaker 1: he was actually there and he was working with the
46:47
Speaker 1: firefighters and this was the day after 9-11 and supposedly
46:51
Speaker 1: it was all made up. But there's no grand vision
46:58
Speaker 1: for America other than make America great again. Hitler actually
47:04
Speaker 1: had a plan, had a vision, knew what he wanted
47:07
Speaker 1: to do and lusted power in a way that I
47:12
Speaker 1: don't think Trump can't. So Trump is bad enough. He
47:15
Speaker 1: really is bad. Without having to compare him to Hitler. Alright.
47:38
Speaker 1: Let's see. Arthur. Thank you, Arthur. $ 200. Really appreciate it.
47:44
Speaker 1: Arthur says, cruelty is the point. A common thread among
47:47
Speaker 1: those who support Trump is that they are more concerned
47:50
Speaker 1: with the policies upsetting the people they don't like than
47:56
Speaker 1: benefiting people they do like. They'll take Democrats are mad
48:01
Speaker 1: as a proxy for this policy is good. Mindlessness and nihilism. Absolutely. Absolutely.
48:07
Speaker 1: They don't care if kicking out immigrants is good for America,
48:10
Speaker 1: bad for America. What they care about is kicking out immigrants.
48:13
Speaker 1: They don't care if, you know, anything they do is
48:17
Speaker 1: actually working and doesn't work as long as it pisses
48:19
Speaker 1: off the left, as long as it pisses off the
48:21
Speaker 1: people they don't like. And they want to be cool, right?
48:25
Speaker 1: I mean, in Minnesota, you know, these people were killed
48:31
Speaker 1: by ICE. Many people, many supporters, Trump supporters, celebrated. And
48:37
Speaker 1: they said, this is what we voted for. Kill them all.
48:40
Speaker 1: They didn't say kill them all, but that was implied.
48:47
Speaker 1: So I agree with you completely. Cruelty is the point
48:55
Speaker 1: with Trump's supporters. It's not about what's good for America.
49:00
Speaker 1: This is why you can show them that a particular
49:04
Speaker 1: policy like tariffs makes no sense, is bad for America.
49:08
Speaker 1: They don't care. They don't care. You know, they want
49:13
Speaker 1: to piss off the right people that they want to
49:15
Speaker 1: piss off. They want to make life difficult. They don't
49:19
Speaker 1: mind the consequences. are suffering. They don't mind that there's uncertainty.
49:22
Speaker 1: They don't mind the higher cost of living. You know,
49:26
Speaker 1: as long as it's we're hurting the foreigners or they
49:30
Speaker 1: perceive it as being hurting the foreigners, they go for it.
49:35
Speaker 1: So yes, I agree completely with Arthur. Michael, two $ 50 questions.
49:43
Speaker 1: Thank you, Michael. Well, one question, two parts. $ 50 each. Michael,
49:47
Speaker 1: do principles of individual rights ever evolve or they remain absolute?
49:53
Speaker 1: For example, when the Second Amendment was written, it took
49:56
Speaker 1: a few minutes to reload a musket. Now you can
49:59
Speaker 1: unleash dozens of rounds a second. Do rights have to
50:03
Speaker 1: be codified with the power created by new technology? Yeah, absolutely.
50:09
Speaker 1: Rights are contextual. like all knowledge, rights depend on the context.
50:15
Speaker 1: So as our understanding of property evolves, for example, intellectual
50:21
Speaker 1: property in an AI world might look differently than intellectual
50:24
Speaker 1: property in a non-AI world, or as you say, even
50:32
Speaker 1: the idea of guns. Second Amendment was written at a
50:36
Speaker 1: time when there was no F-16s. Is an F-16 a
50:39
Speaker 1: protected under the Second Amendment? I don't think so. So
50:48
Speaker 1: it evolves with the changing of the context of what
50:54
Speaker 1: is known about self-defense, what is known about weapons, what
50:58
Speaker 1: is known about, you know, the Second Amendment was really
51:01
Speaker 1: written in the context of the people having a militia
51:05
Speaker 1: to rise up against the government. Well, you know, in
51:12
Speaker 1: a modern society, is that really relevant, given that we
51:16
Speaker 1: have a standing army? Remember, there was no standing army.
51:18
Speaker 1: The U.S. had no standing army at the time. So
51:22
Speaker 1: you have to really think about what is really being
51:25
Speaker 1: protected here. I think the Second Amendment is valid in
51:29
Speaker 1: its protection of, you know, self-defense. But what does self-defense
51:38
Speaker 1: mean in the context of of incredibly powerful weapons. Do
51:44
Speaker 1: I need a nuke in order to defend myself? Do
51:46
Speaker 1: I need an F-16? Do I need a tank? What
51:50
Speaker 1: kind of gun? I mean, I would even say, even today,
51:55
Speaker 1: you might apply the Second Amendment differently in downtown New
52:00
Speaker 1: York than in rural Minnesota or rural Wyoming or whatever, right? Where,
52:07
Speaker 1: for example, it would take a long time for the
52:08
Speaker 1: police to come And you need to be able to
52:11
Speaker 1: defend yourself until they show up. Whereas New York, they
52:14
Speaker 1: can show up very, very quickly. So context matters in
52:19
Speaker 1: how we apply rights and how we define how they
52:25
Speaker 1: apply to particular situations. And technology, the level of technology,
52:31
Speaker 1: the place and time matter to all of that. And
52:34
Speaker 1: that's why when... When you define these rights, you have
52:38
Speaker 1: to be very, very careful in how you're defining them.
52:40
Speaker 1: So you take into account the context of the moment
52:44
Speaker 1: and you leave it open for reinterpretation as the context changes.
52:50
Speaker 1: So they're absolute. You can't violate rights. But what counts
52:55
Speaker 1: as a violation of rights is going to change given
53:03
Speaker 1: the context, given technology, given the state of Of the world,
53:08
Speaker 1: if you will. Yeah. All right. Molten Splendor. $ 100. Thank you,
53:22
Speaker 1: Molten Splendor. Really, really, really appreciate that. I'm having a
53:26
Speaker 1: hard time after hearing you describe that F-U dollars means
53:32
Speaker 1: to you. What F-U dollars means to you. Okay, I'm
53:35
Speaker 1: having a hard time after hearing you describe what a
53:38
Speaker 1: few dollars means to you. Learning that YBS is a
53:41
Speaker 1: job that you are looking forward to quitting made me sad.
53:44
Speaker 1: I understand wanting to retire, but isn't being actively engaged
53:48
Speaker 1: to change the world a passion of yours? Oh, so
53:51
Speaker 1: maybe you misunderstood me. I have no intention of quitting YBS.
54:00
Speaker 1: I have no intention of quitting... lecturing around the world
54:06
Speaker 1: and driving intellectual and cultural change and philosophical change. I'm
54:13
Speaker 1: devoted to that, engaged with that. It's my passion. I
54:15
Speaker 1: love it. I have no intention ever of retiring. What
54:20
Speaker 1: FU dollars means is that I could, if I wanted to.
54:25
Speaker 1: What FU money means is that I could take a
54:28
Speaker 1: two-month vacation and get no income from YBS or and
54:33
Speaker 1: be fine with that wouldn't make one iota of a
54:35
Speaker 1: difference to me so no i mean if if i
54:41
Speaker 1: came across as oh god this is a job it's
54:44
Speaker 1: work it's a hassle i do it because i'm making
54:48
Speaker 1: a living i would quit if i didn't have to
54:51
Speaker 1: then that is not was not my intent maybe i
54:53
Speaker 1: was in a bad mood i can't remember it was
54:55
Speaker 1: certainly not my intent to say any of that you
54:59
Speaker 1: know for example um you know, there could be a
55:04
Speaker 1: lengthy period of time where if I had that kind
55:06
Speaker 1: of money, I wouldn't do a show because I'm traveling
55:09
Speaker 1: and it's hard and I'm getting older and I just
55:13
Speaker 1: want to relax for a long time. Right now, I'm thinking, okay,
55:17
Speaker 1: but this, you know, I need the money. So it's
55:22
Speaker 1: less likely that I not do shows as often. You know,
55:29
Speaker 1: I sometimes travel to crazy places on crazy schedules. If
55:32
Speaker 1: I had a few money, I'd say, okay, I'll do
55:35
Speaker 1: all those talks, but I'm going to do them over
55:38
Speaker 1: a month instead of over two weeks, right? So I'm
55:42
Speaker 1: going to travel and rest in between and maybe do
55:45
Speaker 1: some sightseeing in between and then go to the next thing. But,
55:48
Speaker 1: you know, I'm much more focused right now on, yeah,
55:51
Speaker 1: I want to do all the talks, but I also
55:53
Speaker 1: want to do them quickly so I can get to
55:54
Speaker 1: other stuff that I need to do because partially it's
55:57
Speaker 1: about making a living. So that's the sense, right? I
56:01
Speaker 1: could do everything that I do today and I intend
56:04
Speaker 1: to do everything that I do today until I die.
56:09
Speaker 1: Maybe at different volumes, right? But I would do it
56:13
Speaker 1: in a much more relaxed way without concern about, for example,
56:17
Speaker 1: I would bug you a lot less about funding the show,
56:21
Speaker 1: about super chats, about stickers, right? I would just not
56:25
Speaker 1: mention it at all if it wasn't important. Right now
56:28
Speaker 1: it's important to me. It's not important to me just
56:30
Speaker 1: because it reflects the value that you value the show.
56:37
Speaker 1: But it's important to me because it's my income. If
56:40
Speaker 1: I had a few money, it would still be nice
56:43
Speaker 1: because it would show me that you still value what
56:45
Speaker 1: I do. But it wouldn't have any urgency. So it
56:50
Speaker 1: would change, it wouldn't change the fundamental, which is, yeah,
56:55
Speaker 1: I want to do this because I love it, right? I,
56:58
Speaker 1: you know, I love doing these shows. I miss doing
57:00
Speaker 1: these shows when I don't do them and I would
57:02
Speaker 1: continue to do them. I would just take a little
57:05
Speaker 1: bit more breaks and I would be less, there would
57:08
Speaker 1: be less urgency in my bugging you to help fund
57:11
Speaker 1: the show, which I think you would appreciate as well. Um,
57:17
Speaker 1: I would, another thing I would do, right? I would
57:20
Speaker 1: experiment more, right? So for example, um, We're doing two
57:25
Speaker 1: experiments over the last week and a half. We've done
57:27
Speaker 1: two experiments. I've done two experiments. One is we're doing
57:31
Speaker 1: these documentaries. If I have more money, I would do
57:35
Speaker 1: more of these. I would try different things. I would
57:37
Speaker 1: try different types of documentaries, try different types of videos.
57:40
Speaker 1: And funding them would be a lot easier and a
57:45
Speaker 1: lot simpler and a lot more straightforward because I wouldn't
57:47
Speaker 1: be worried about my own income. That's one. The second
57:51
Speaker 1: experiment that I did this week, and I haven't mentioned
57:53
Speaker 1: it on the show, which is surprising, was that I
57:55
Speaker 1: published my first Iran AI essay on September 11th. And
58:00
Speaker 1: I did the whole September 11th show, and I didn't
58:02
Speaker 1: even mention that I had the essay out. So if
58:04
Speaker 1: you subscribe to my Substack, which you should, subscribe to
58:08
Speaker 1: my Substack, Iran book Substack, and it's Iran AI, then
58:13
Speaker 1: you will find an essay there on September 11th, on
58:15
Speaker 1: 25 years, what have we learned, which was co-authored with
58:19
Speaker 1: Iran AI, with Artificial Intelligence, And I intend to do
58:24
Speaker 1: a lot more of that. I intend to devote more
58:26
Speaker 1: time to publishing essays with AI, co-authoring them with AI
58:31
Speaker 1: in a sense, AI writing them with my guidance and
58:35
Speaker 1: then me editing them. That would be fun. That would
58:37
Speaker 1: be interesting. That's another way in which to get involved.
58:40
Speaker 1: I could get involved and I could do stuff. So
58:44
Speaker 1: the more, again, the more the, if you will, the
58:49
Speaker 1: stress of making a living is gone, the more I
58:54
Speaker 1: can experiment, try new things, do different things, and worry
58:57
Speaker 1: less about, again, making the money. alright hopefully that answers
59:18
Speaker 1: your question Bolton and I apologize for giving you a
59:22
Speaker 1: hard time by not answering the question in the past
59:26
Speaker 1: accurately enough and giving you the impression that I would
59:30
Speaker 1: look forward to quitting Again, I will never quit unless
59:33
Speaker 1: I have to, right? Unless medically I can't do it
59:36
Speaker 1: or psychologically I can't do it. If my mind is going,
59:40
Speaker 1: somebody out there, please tell me so that I quit.
59:42
Speaker 1: I want to quit at the top. I don't want
59:44
Speaker 1: to quit after embarrassing myself. So my definite intention is
59:50
Speaker 1: not to quit as long as I can keep doing
59:53
Speaker 1: these shows, as long as I can keep doing lectures
59:55
Speaker 1: and debates and panels and discussions and all of this stuff.
59:59
Speaker 1: I intend to keep doing them. So, you heard it here.
1:00:04
Speaker 1: Iran is not quitting, not retiring, not leaving, and not
1:00:07
Speaker 1: doing what he's doing under duress. Harper, if Plato wasn't
1:00:18
Speaker 1: an altruist, where did Christianity get altruism from? I mean,
1:00:23
Speaker 1: there's a sense in which it invented it, but it
1:00:28
Speaker 1: got altruism from tribal societies. It just wasn't as clear-cut
1:00:35
Speaker 1: and as obvious and as cleanly stated as it was
1:00:40
Speaker 1: in Christianity. So, most tribal societies expected the individual to
1:00:46
Speaker 1: be willing to sacrifice for the tribe. But there was
1:00:51
Speaker 1: supposedly something in it for them because the tribe, the family,
1:00:55
Speaker 1: their own family, whatever, had importance to it. But the
1:00:59
Speaker 1: witch doctor and Attila taking terminology from Iron Man for
1:01:04
Speaker 1: the new intellectual, banded together to convince the people that
1:01:08
Speaker 1: they had to sacrifice, sometimes human sacrifice, such as literally sacrifice,
1:01:13
Speaker 1: in order to appease the gods. And that has a
1:01:17
Speaker 1: long tradition in ancient civilizations or pre-civilizations. So the Christians
1:01:23
Speaker 1: didn't invent it completely. I mean, it's not like the
1:01:27
Speaker 1: Jews had egoism and then the Christians perverted it. The
1:01:31
Speaker 1: Jews had some form of sacrifice. But what the Christians
1:01:37
Speaker 1: did is they purified it. They cleaned it up. They
1:01:41
Speaker 1: made it explicit. And they made it, no, you need
1:01:44
Speaker 1: a sacrifice. You need pain. You need to suffer. Look
1:01:48
Speaker 1: at Jesus on the cross. He suffered. He died for
1:01:51
Speaker 1: your sins. You should be willing to sacrifice, to be
1:01:57
Speaker 1: in pain, to suffer for other people's sins. That's the
1:02:01
Speaker 1: most noble, that's the most moral thing that can be done.
1:02:07
Speaker 1: That is uniquely Christian, and they made it up, just
1:02:09
Speaker 1: like they created it. It's original to them. But the
1:02:17
Speaker 1: idea of self-sacrifice, the idea of altruism existed not in
1:02:21
Speaker 1: Greek society, but in tribal societies, and to some extent
1:02:25
Speaker 1: in Judaism. It's just that, again, Christianity made a much
1:02:29
Speaker 1: bigger deal of it, and made it into the governing principle,
1:02:33
Speaker 1: moral principle. Hopper Campbell, what exactly is AI? I wish
1:02:39
Speaker 1: Ayn Rand was still alive to give a brilliant summation
1:02:43
Speaker 1: of it. I mean, look, AI is basically a statistical
1:02:49
Speaker 1: model that it's a kind of regression, it's an algorithm
1:02:56
Speaker 1: that looks at you know, hundreds of thousands of books,
1:03:03
Speaker 1: gazillions of items of text, and sees what combination of
1:03:08
Speaker 1: words are a response to what combination of words that
1:03:14
Speaker 1: are questions. But AI has no concept. AI is not conscious.
1:03:19
Speaker 1: AI is not thinking. AI is trying to match the
1:03:24
Speaker 1: best words to the words you sent it. Now, saying that,
1:03:32
Speaker 1: it has been trained on so many books, so many
1:03:37
Speaker 1: articles and books and words, and it has so many
1:03:43
Speaker 1: variables in its statistical algorithm. And it's constantly learning because
1:03:54
Speaker 1: it's constantly gaining more knowledge, not knowledge in quotation marks,
1:03:58
Speaker 1: in a sense that it's exposed to more words, more knowledge,
1:04:01
Speaker 1: more writings, that it is doing an astounding job. It
1:04:07
Speaker 1: really is amazing. I mean, I ask it questions and
1:04:10
Speaker 1: answers I get are really, really good. Not always. And
1:04:16
Speaker 1: sometimes AI is wrong and sometimes AI makes stuff up
1:04:19
Speaker 1: because it's combined words in a way. It doesn't have
1:04:22
Speaker 1: a way to test whether they're true or not other
1:04:24
Speaker 1: than by comparing them to other words. it's the ultimate rationalism,
1:04:28
Speaker 1: if you will. But, you know, even the most advanced
1:04:37
Speaker 1: models are basically statistical algorithms that are doing, that are
1:04:44
Speaker 1: seeing connections between different things. And they become so complex
1:04:52
Speaker 1: that the creators of these things can't keep track of
1:04:57
Speaker 1: how they exactly work. And the results that they're generating
1:05:01
Speaker 1: are amazing. But again, they're not conscious. They can't think.
1:05:07
Speaker 1: They can see connections and see parallels and see, right?
1:05:13
Speaker 1: They can statistically combine things and statistically see relationships. And
1:05:22
Speaker 1: the results are astounding. I would have never expected AI
1:05:25
Speaker 1: to be as good as it is today in such
1:05:29
Speaker 1: a short period of time. And it just shows what
1:05:32
Speaker 1: can happen when you make available the kind of quantity
1:05:39
Speaker 1: of data that we have made available to these machines.
1:05:45
Speaker 1: But you're right. It would be great if Ayn Rand
1:05:48
Speaker 1: was here. Now, I know the Institute, Ayn Rand Institute,
1:05:51
Speaker 1: is putting together a group of philosophers to sit down
1:05:55
Speaker 1: and answer a lot of these questions. And I think
1:05:58
Speaker 1: Objectivism will have some interesting things to say about AI
1:06:02
Speaker 1: in the months to come. In the months to come. And,
1:06:14
Speaker 1: you know, the AI that we have is a particular
1:06:17
Speaker 1: form of AI. It's LLM, large language models. People are
1:06:21
Speaker 1: trying to create other types of AI that are more
1:06:25
Speaker 1: driven by kind of different models that are less dependent
1:06:29
Speaker 1: on massive quantities of language. But again, we will see.
1:06:34
Speaker 1: But basically, it's driven by a statistical algorithm. Thinking requires
1:06:44
Speaker 1: connection to reality, and computers have no connection to reality.
1:06:48
Speaker 1: They can't experience reality. They can't see reality. Even if
1:06:52
Speaker 1: they have a camera, they're not seeing reality. Because they're
1:06:57
Speaker 1: not conscious. To see, you have to be conscious. So
1:07:01
Speaker 1: you can't think if you're not conscious. So there's no
1:07:05
Speaker 1: thinking going on. And there's no connecting to facts of
1:07:08
Speaker 1: reality going on. Because, again, they can't experience reality, so
1:07:12
Speaker 1: they don't know what reality is. They can't differentiate between
1:07:17
Speaker 1: words and attacks and zero ones from a photograph, from
1:07:21
Speaker 1: a video. There's no difference between between them. It's just data.
1:07:28
Speaker 1: It's all just data. And for us, it's not just data.
1:07:31
Speaker 1: We experience reality. We see things. And we don't experience concepts.
1:07:41
Speaker 1: We create concepts. So, anyway, it's a complicated epistemological question.
1:07:47
Speaker 1: I don't have the answers. I don't claim to have
1:07:49
Speaker 1: the answers. But I'm hoping that... as objectivist intellectuals engage
1:07:56
Speaker 1: with this, particularly the philosophers, they'll increase our clarity around
1:08:02
Speaker 1: these ideas. James, was September 11th harder to pull off
1:08:10
Speaker 1: than October 7th? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, September 11th required
1:08:19
Speaker 1: crossing an ocean. It required figuring out how to get
1:08:22
Speaker 1: into the United States, how to stay in the United States,
1:08:24
Speaker 1: how to go to learn how to fly, which flights
1:08:31
Speaker 1: to take, how to get to airports. Yes, and the
1:08:34
Speaker 1: CIA and the FBI are looking at you all the time.
1:08:37
Speaker 1: I think it was probably harder. But October 7th wasn't
1:08:40
Speaker 1: easy either, but it was more just rushing the border
1:08:43
Speaker 1: and overwhelming. And October 7th was primarily the element of surprise.
1:08:50
Speaker 1: And it shouldn't have been a surprise. Israel had enough
1:08:52
Speaker 1: intelligence already. if they hadn't been complacent and made complacent
1:08:58
Speaker 1: by the political leadership. then they couldn't have pulled it off.
1:09:08
Speaker 1: All right, Shazbat. You've said that anarchy is worse than communism.
1:09:14
Speaker 1: Did you know that there are communist anarchists? Yeah, I know, yeah.
1:09:17
Speaker 1: If only I could dress up as one for Halloween.
1:09:21
Speaker 1: But I don't know what they look like. Look it up.
1:09:23
Speaker 1: I mean, you can find out. Look it up on Google.
1:09:27
Speaker 1: Ask AI to show you pictures of communist anarchists. There
1:09:33
Speaker 1: have been demonstrations of communist anarchists. I mean, Noam Chomsky
1:09:39
Speaker 1: is basically a communist anarchist. You could dress up as
1:09:42
Speaker 1: Noam Chomsky. That would be fun. That would be fun.
1:09:46
Speaker 1: Send me a photo if you ever do that. But yeah,
1:09:48
Speaker 1: you can check it out. You can check out the demonstrations,
1:09:50
Speaker 1: you can check out the rallies, and you can dress
1:09:53
Speaker 1: up as a communist anarchist. Christian, from a selfish perspective,
1:10:13
Speaker 1: during a Hamas attack, you'd rather defend your own family,
1:10:16
Speaker 1: your own friends, then innocent people you don't know, right?
1:10:21
Speaker 1: So Doron was wrong and Steve was right in season
1:10:25
Speaker 1: five of Fowler. Do you agree? I haven't seen season
1:10:31
Speaker 1: five of Fowler. So I'm going to do, once I
1:10:35
Speaker 1: see season five of Fowler, probably by the end of
1:10:37
Speaker 1: this month, Nikos and I will do a whole show
1:10:41
Speaker 1: on Fowler. So you're going to have to wait for
1:10:45
Speaker 1: my answer. But yeah, absolutely. You'd rather defend your own
1:10:50
Speaker 1: family than innocent people you don't know. Yes. But I'd
1:10:59
Speaker 1: have to know more of the context of what was
1:11:00
Speaker 1: going on in the movie, right, on the show at
1:11:03
Speaker 1: the moment. So I'm going to watch it. My wife
1:11:06
Speaker 1: does not want to watch it, so I have to
1:11:07
Speaker 1: watch it sometime when she's not with me. It's too
1:11:10
Speaker 1: traumatic for her. After October 7th, she gets too upset
1:11:13
Speaker 1: by anything depicting the Arab-Israeli, the Arab-Palestinian conflict. It's too raw.
1:11:21
Speaker 1: So I'm going to watch it probably on the flight home.
1:11:24
Speaker 1: So I'm going to try to binge watch as much
1:11:27
Speaker 1: as I can. And Nikos and I have already scheduled,
1:11:31
Speaker 1: I can't remember the date, but we've already scheduled to
1:11:34
Speaker 1: do the show on Fawda in October. Jennifer, this is
1:11:42
Speaker 1: a quote from Neil Peart, of course. Sun dogs fire
1:11:47
Speaker 1: on the horizon. Meteors rain stars across the night. This
1:11:52
Speaker 1: moment may be brief, but it can be so bright.
1:11:56
Speaker 1: That's very cool. All right. Neil put Rush concert tomorrow
1:12:00
Speaker 1: in Cleveland. Excellent. I know you're excited. That is fantastic.
1:12:06
Speaker 1: You guys need to have a great time on the
1:12:08
Speaker 1: Michiganians that are going out to Cleveland to see Rush.
1:12:12
Speaker 1: I'm sure you'll have a great time. So enjoy, enjoy, enjoy.
1:12:21
Speaker 1: That's funny. Communist anarchists are fake anarchists. They're not proper anarchists.
1:12:25
Speaker 1: They're the original anarchists. They're the ones who invented anarchy,
1:12:28
Speaker 1: were the communists. Anarchists cannot be defenders of individual rights
1:12:35
Speaker 1: because there are no individual rights under... There is no
1:12:39
Speaker 1: protection of individual rights under anarchy. Anarchy is the exact
1:12:42
Speaker 1: negation of individual rights. It's the acknowledgement that You know,
1:12:46
Speaker 1: rights are negotiable. You know, Brian Kaplan was honest enough
1:12:50
Speaker 1: to admit that during my debate with him, because individual
1:12:55
Speaker 1: rights cannot be protected, and the goal is not to
1:12:59
Speaker 1: protect individual rights under anarchism. That's why anarcho-capitalism is a
1:13:04
Speaker 1: contradiction of terms, and the communist anarchists are much more
1:13:09
Speaker 1: real anarchists than people who claim to be capitalists. There's
1:13:13
Speaker 1: no way to protect individual rights under anarchy. Indeed, anarchy
1:13:17
Speaker 1: guarantees their violation. What there is is competition over so-called rights.
1:13:25
Speaker 1: That's why force cannot be competed. Individual rights, there's no
1:13:29
Speaker 1: competition over rights protection. There's rights protection. That's it. And
1:13:33
Speaker 1: for that, you need a monopoly over the use of force. Clark.
1:13:39
Speaker 1: Just an FYI, the shirts you wear during lectures show
1:13:42
Speaker 1: sweat pouring through. Yeah, I know. Particularly the one in
1:13:46
Speaker 1: Norway that I did. Yeah, I sweat a lot, and
1:13:52
Speaker 1: I don't have a solution to that problem. I cannot,
1:13:58
Speaker 1: I wear, you know, deodorant that stops the smell, but
1:14:04
Speaker 1: the reality is that the antiperspirant, the things that stop
1:14:09
Speaker 1: actually I'm allergic to, and I suffer dearly. But even
1:14:13
Speaker 1: when I use it, it doesn't work. So the only
1:14:15
Speaker 1: solution is to wear a jacket, to hide it. But
1:14:18
Speaker 1: then I get even hotter, and I sweat even more.
1:14:21
Speaker 1: So it's very difficult. Sadly, in the lecture, in no way,
1:14:29
Speaker 1: it was very obvious and showed. Dress shields. I need
1:14:34
Speaker 1: to look into dress shields. I'm not sure what that is.
1:14:38
Speaker 1: But if anybody has ideas, I'm open to ideas. It
1:14:42
Speaker 1: certainly is a distraction. Liam, is the soaring popularity of
1:14:48
Speaker 1: AFD in Germany a quasi-Nazi comeback? I mean, it depends
1:14:57
Speaker 1: what you mean by quasi. It's certainly... They're certainly appealing
1:15:04
Speaker 1: to many of the kind of fears and demagogy of
1:15:07
Speaker 1: the Nazis. Again, they're not as explicit. They don't have
1:15:11
Speaker 1: quite a program. They don't exactly know what they want. And,
1:15:15
Speaker 1: of course, they are feeding off of legitimate grievances. That is,
1:15:19
Speaker 1: real problems with immigration in Germany. And so I think
1:15:24
Speaker 1: the soaring popularity has more to do with the fact
1:15:26
Speaker 1: that there are legitimate grievances that the conventional political parties
1:15:30
Speaker 1: are all ignoring. So, yeah, I mean, suddenly, I don't
1:15:41
Speaker 1: think Germany's become Nazi. I don't think a vast majority
1:15:45
Speaker 1: of the people supporting the AFD are Nazi sympathizers. I
1:15:51
Speaker 1: don't think the AFD has anybody charismatic enough to pull
1:15:55
Speaker 1: off a Nazi takeover. But it's not good. It's not good,
1:16:00
Speaker 1: but it's really a reflection. And maybe the rise of
1:16:03
Speaker 1: Nazism was too. of the complete and utter failure of
1:16:08
Speaker 1: the conventional political parties to deal with a real objective problem. Arthur,
1:16:21
Speaker 1: if you need a higher power to be a good person,
1:16:24
Speaker 1: you're not a good person. Yeah, I agree. I agree.
1:16:29
Speaker 1: If the threat of going to hell is going to
1:16:31
Speaker 1: make you a good person, then you're not a good person.
1:16:34
Speaker 1: You should be a good person because it's good for you.
1:16:36
Speaker 1: Because it's right for you. Because it's consistent with life.
1:16:47
Speaker 1: Lincoln says, I was able to submit my application for
1:16:49
Speaker 1: ARU yesterday. I'm looking forward to start next month. Well,
1:16:52
Speaker 1: it's not an application really. But a question for you, Lincoln.
1:16:56
Speaker 1: Were you at the Ayn Rand conference in Austin? Somebody
1:17:01
Speaker 1: said they were looking for you and didn't see you there.
1:17:04
Speaker 1: And I thought you were going, so just wondering if
1:17:06
Speaker 1: you went. Michael. Michael Schumer has been interviewing a lot
1:17:12
Speaker 1: of objectivists lately. Would you go on his show again? Yeah,
1:17:14
Speaker 1: I'd go on his show in a second. But who
1:17:17
Speaker 1: has he been interviewing? I haven't seen him interview any objectivists.
1:17:21
Speaker 1: So I'll check it out. I didn't realize he was
1:17:23
Speaker 1: interviewing objectivists. But yeah, I'd love to go on his
1:17:26
Speaker 1: show again. Leitz, debate liquid Zulu, who is an anarchist
1:17:32
Speaker 1: and an objectivist. He integrated objectivism with anarchism. Orthodox objectivists
1:17:36
Speaker 1: fail to understand anarchism. I don't know what orthodox objectivism is.
1:17:42
Speaker 1: There's just objectivism. You can't integrate anarchism and objectivism. Maybe
1:17:48
Speaker 1: anarchism is true. Maybe it's true. But it's not objectivist.
1:17:53
Speaker 1: So the very idea that he would try to integrate
1:17:56
Speaker 1: objectivism with anarchism shows me that he has no idea,
1:18:01
Speaker 1: understanding what objectivism is. And that's pretty simple. It's pretty straightforward.
1:18:04
Speaker 1: That's not hard. Objectivism is the philosophy of Ayn Rand.
1:18:07
Speaker 1: Ayn Rand rejected anarchism. Therefore, anarchism cannot be integrated into objectivism. Again,
1:18:13
Speaker 1: anarchism might be true. It can't be objectivism. And that's fine.
1:18:20
Speaker 1: Objectivism is not the truth. So... Again, I've said everything
1:18:29
Speaker 1: I want to say about the debate with Zulu, Liquid Zulu.
1:18:32
Speaker 1: I see no advantage to doing it. I see no
1:18:36
Speaker 1: benefit to me. I see a lot of benefits to
1:18:38
Speaker 1: Liquid Zulu. I see no benefits to me. And, you know,
1:18:44
Speaker 1: why is there this panic and hysteria about, Yvonne, you
1:18:48
Speaker 1: have to debate what's going on. What's the urgency? What
1:18:52
Speaker 1: has changed in the world that requires the debate right now?
1:18:55
Speaker 1: Why are 10 people showing up suddenly on my, uh,
1:18:58
Speaker 1: on my, uh, channel saying, debate, debate. I mean, that
1:19:02
Speaker 1: shows that something is screwed up, right? That there's a
1:19:06
Speaker 1: kind of a, a panic around this. Um, I have
1:19:10
Speaker 1: no interest in playing that game. And again, the issue
1:19:14
Speaker 1: of anarchy bores me. It just doesn't interest me. And
1:19:18
Speaker 1: if you're really interested, and if you want to ask
1:19:20
Speaker 1: me challenging questions about anarchism, you're free to do so.
1:19:25
Speaker 1: What I'm asking you is first read my essay with
1:19:28
Speaker 1: Don Watkins on Don's Substack. I should probably put it
1:19:33
Speaker 1: on my Substack as well. But on Don's Substack, we
1:19:37
Speaker 1: have a long, long essay on anarchism, Read it. If
1:19:41
Speaker 1: you're not convinced by it, tell me why. You can
1:19:45
Speaker 1: come here for $ 5 and you can tell me why
1:19:47
Speaker 1: you're not convinced by my essay. And then we can
1:19:50
Speaker 1: have a debate. Don't need Zulu for that. Time. GOP
1:19:55
Speaker 1: backlash against Indian students. Insane. Disgusting more than insane. Insane
1:20:00
Speaker 1: is giving them too much. It's disgusting. It's horrible. Xenophobic.
1:20:03
Speaker 1: It's racist. Yeah, it really is horrible. And the GOP
1:20:12
Speaker 1: is just becoming a party of disgusting people. Time. Trump
1:20:20
Speaker 1: screwed the Gulf after billions in gifts. Well, I don't
1:20:23
Speaker 1: know that he really got billions of gifts other than
1:20:25
Speaker 1: the Qatari plane. But yeah, he's screwing the Gulf. But
1:20:30
Speaker 1: he's really screwing America. Because by screwing the Gulf, he's
1:20:33
Speaker 1: really helping the Iranians, who are our enemy. Music of
1:20:41
Speaker 1: 4 Channel says, Liquid Zulu is kooky, but you could
1:20:44
Speaker 1: poach some of his viewers. I doubt it. I doubt it.
1:20:49
Speaker 1: I doubt his viewers are open to being poached. I
1:20:53
Speaker 1: think there'd be a lot of viewers coming from my
1:20:56
Speaker 1: channel that, you know, but I've already got them. And
1:20:59
Speaker 1: I just don't see, I'd rather go on Destiny. I'd
1:21:03
Speaker 1: rather go on, I'd rather be on Michael Shermer. I'd
1:21:07
Speaker 1: rather do, be on lots and lots of other where
1:21:12
Speaker 1: I can actually get new people. And not on Zulu,
1:21:16
Speaker 1: where the people who are there are people who know
1:21:19
Speaker 1: who I am, can come to my channel anytime, can
1:21:21
Speaker 1: read my essay on anarchism, can, you know, every point
1:21:25
Speaker 1: that I would make in a debate, I make better
1:21:26
Speaker 1: in an essay. So read the essay. Taim, what do
1:21:34
Speaker 1: you think of the architect Zaha Hadid? Please see images
1:21:38
Speaker 1: of a stunning Galaxy Soho building in Beijing. I love
1:21:41
Speaker 1: Zaha Hadid. I mean, I don't love her. I love
1:21:44
Speaker 1: her architecture. She's also passed away, but her company still exists.
1:21:49
Speaker 1: And they design some of the most beautiful buildings in
1:21:52
Speaker 1: the world. They're some of the best modern architects in
1:21:56
Speaker 1: the world out there. So, yeah, I love their designs. Woman,
1:22:02
Speaker 1: have you watched Von der Leyen's State of the Union
1:22:05
Speaker 1: speech with Mark Carney today? Thoughts? No, I haven't. I
1:22:09
Speaker 1: heard she said some things that are interesting, but I
1:22:12
Speaker 1: have to read more about it. As I said, I
1:22:14
Speaker 1: have not been following the news the last few days
1:22:17
Speaker 1: because I've been so busy. But I did see something,
1:22:21
Speaker 1: and she invited Canada to be an associate member. I'm
1:22:27
Speaker 1: cool with that. I think it's good for Canada. I
1:22:30
Speaker 1: think it's good for Europe. And I think it's a
1:22:33
Speaker 1: slap to Trump, which I think is good. Taim, what
1:22:41
Speaker 1: do you think of Mehdi Hassan? How would you describe
1:22:46
Speaker 1: intelligent people who use the intelligence for harmful or evil purposes? Well,
1:22:49
Speaker 1: I'd describe them as evil, or evasive, or immoral. I
1:22:56
Speaker 1: think Mehdi Hassan promoting the Palestinian cause is disgusting and horrible,
1:23:02
Speaker 1: and yeah, I think he evades so much, he ignores
1:23:05
Speaker 1: so much, he's smart, and yet He's chosen to side
1:23:10
Speaker 1: with evil in the face of good. Robert, what does
1:23:16
Speaker 1: it mean to be American and how does someone become one?
1:23:20
Speaker 1: I mean, I think to be an American means to
1:23:24
Speaker 1: embrace the ideas, the fundamental ideas at the heart of America,
1:23:28
Speaker 1: the idea of individualism above all else. And one becomes
1:23:32
Speaker 1: one by, you know, coming to America and ultimately by
1:23:38
Speaker 1: being you know, getting legal citizenship. But, you know, spiritually
1:23:45
Speaker 1: to become an American means to elevate individualism above all else,
1:23:51
Speaker 1: to base your political philosophy on the sanctity of the individual,
1:23:55
Speaker 1: on his moral right to pursue his own happiness, to
1:23:57
Speaker 1: pursue his rational self-interest, and that the role of government
1:24:02
Speaker 1: is to protect him so he can do that. It's
1:24:04
Speaker 1: a Declaration of Independence. Embracing the Declaration of Independence is
1:24:14
Speaker 1: what America means. Becoming an American is embracing that declaration.
1:24:18
Speaker 1: Anybody can do that spiritually. And to become physically an American, yeah,
1:24:23
Speaker 1: that means moving to America, becoming a productive person within
1:24:27
Speaker 1: America and gaining citizenship. In a rational world, that would
1:24:31
Speaker 1: be easy. Time. Russian oligarchs paid for Don Jr. 's
1:24:38
Speaker 1: wedding Oh, is that true? I don't know. I haven't
1:24:42
Speaker 1: read that. I haven't seen that story. But would it
1:24:45
Speaker 1: shock me? Of course not. Roman. Thoughts on Robert Nozick.
1:24:50
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a long discussion. We'll probably do a
1:24:52
Speaker 1: show with Nikos about Nozick. I mean, Nozick was a
1:24:55
Speaker 1: decent philosopher, one of the better ones of the 20th century.
1:24:59
Speaker 1: A better libertarian. And anti-anarchy, which was good for him. Um,
1:25:08
Speaker 1: clearly misunderstood Rand and blew it when it came to Rand.
1:25:13
Speaker 1: So sad, because having Nozick on our side would have
1:25:17
Speaker 1: made life a lot better, a lot easier to grow
1:25:20
Speaker 1: and expand the movement. But we'll do a deeper dive
1:25:25
Speaker 1: into Nozick with Nikos on a future show. Time. Do
1:25:30
Speaker 1: you really miss amber streetlights? I dislike the new white LEDs.
1:25:34
Speaker 1: Photos of Chicago under the old orange lights look so
1:25:36
Speaker 1: much more beautiful. Can't say I miss Amber Street Lights.
1:25:40
Speaker 1: I can't say I really notice the difference. Michael, do
1:25:46
Speaker 1: we live in a very malevolent culture? I don't know,
1:25:49
Speaker 1: very malevolent. There are lots of benevolent people out there,
1:25:52
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of benevolence in the world. We
1:25:56
Speaker 1: live in a culture that has growing malevolence, growing malevolence.
1:26:03
Speaker 1: But I wouldn't say that's yet the dominant aspect of it.
1:26:07
Speaker 1: certainly not out there in the real world maybe online
1:26:09
Speaker 1: yes but not in the real world time says do
1:26:13
Speaker 1: you like randy fine i don't think i know who
1:26:15
Speaker 1: randy fine is um time is universal opposition to data
1:26:23
Speaker 1: centers unique no i mean it's luddite ism all over
1:26:27
Speaker 1: again um maybe the fact that it's so prevalent is unique,
1:26:32
Speaker 1: that it's so large that it affects both the left
1:26:34
Speaker 1: and the right so dominantly. Maybe that's unique. And that's
1:26:40
Speaker 1: a sign of how the culture has deteriorated. It's certainly
1:26:43
Speaker 1: unique for America. Luddites never really did very well in America.
1:26:48
Speaker 1: America was always the pro-technology, pro-progress place. And the fact
1:26:53
Speaker 1: that they're doing so well in America is a little disheartening.
1:26:57
Speaker 1: Very disheartening, not a little. Taim, would you do a
1:27:01
Speaker 1: show on life and morality of the Prophet Muhammad? It
1:27:06
Speaker 1: might offer a deeper understanding of Islam. Huh. I'll talk
1:27:10
Speaker 1: to Nikos about that, possibly. We could possibly do that.
1:27:15
Speaker 1: We're talking about doing something on the Muslim Brotherhood soon,
1:27:18
Speaker 1: so we'll definitely do that. But yeah, I think we
1:27:21
Speaker 1: could probably do something on the Prophet Muhammad. I mean,
1:27:26
Speaker 1: certainly if you sponsored it, I would do it, right? Sponsorship, $ 1, 000
1:27:30
Speaker 1: for a show. I'll pretty much do any topic you
1:27:33
Speaker 1: guys want. Esoteric Dichotomy. Hey, you're on. Would you ever
1:27:37
Speaker 1: visit space for a tourist trip if it became affordable
1:27:40
Speaker 1: and safe in the next 15 years or so? Also,
1:27:42
Speaker 1: it's cool you're using air. Probably not. If I was 30,
1:27:47
Speaker 1: 40 years younger, I would. Definitely. But, yeah, I'm not
1:27:53
Speaker 1: that interested. I've got a bit of a fear of heights,
1:27:56
Speaker 1: which I've gained with age. Um, And it just seems like, yeah,
1:28:04
Speaker 1: I'm just not that excited about it at this point
1:28:07
Speaker 1: in my life. If I was young, yeah, I would
1:28:09
Speaker 1: definitely do it. There's so many things I want to
1:28:13
Speaker 1: see right here on Earth before I go up into space.
1:28:17
Speaker 1: All right, guys, I am fading. I am going to
1:28:20
Speaker 1: crash in bed, go to sleep. Thank you. Thanks to
1:28:23
Speaker 1: all the Super Chatters. You did great today. Really, really,
1:28:25
Speaker 1: really appreciate the support. Do we have stickers? We probably
1:28:29
Speaker 1: had some stickers. Let me thank the sticker people before
1:28:32
Speaker 1: we leave here. I'm not sure when the next show
1:28:35
Speaker 1: will be. It really depends on how tired I am
1:28:37
Speaker 1: at the end of these shows. days. Mike, thank you.
1:28:41
Speaker 1: I will do a show on Saturday, pretty sure, and
1:28:46
Speaker 1: on Sunday, pretty sure. But other than that, I'm not sure.
1:28:49
Speaker 1: I'm not sure about Thursday and Friday. Thursday, no, but
1:28:52
Speaker 1: maybe Friday. But Saturday, Sunday, definitely do shows. I'll try to...
1:29:00
Speaker 1: I try to have time to invest more in catching
1:29:04
Speaker 1: up on the news so we have more content there,
1:29:07
Speaker 1: but also prepare your questions. And yeah, I will. And
1:29:13
Speaker 1: as I said, Nikos is here, and we're talking about
1:29:16
Speaker 1: future shows, so we're putting future shows together. All right, everybody.
1:29:21
Speaker 1: Have a great afternoon, evening, night, wherever you are, and
1:29:27
Speaker 1: I will see you in the next few days. Bye, everybody.