Latest / Yaron Brook Show / Gad Saad's Book "Suicidal Empathy" | Yaron & Nikos Dialogues

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Gad Saad's Book "Suicidal Empathy" | Yaron & Nikos Dialogues · Yaron Brook Show

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  Speaker 1: The Radical. Fundamental Principles of Freedom.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: Rational Self-Interest.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: And Individual Rights. This is the Yaron Brook Show.
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  Speaker 2: Alright everybody, welcome to the Yaron and Nikos Dialogues. Another episode,
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  Speaker 2: I think this is 15th. I think this is episode 15,
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  Speaker 2: if I'm counting right.
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  Speaker 1: I think we've done more than 15, but that's okay.
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  Speaker 2: All right, that's what I got listed. So Angela's miscounting,
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: but she has it down as 15. Anyway, we've done
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: as many as we've done, and we will do many more.
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  Speaker 2: We were already talking about what we're going to be
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: doing next. We will do, I've reminded you all week,
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: but we will do next Sunday. I think also 2 p.m.
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  Speaker 2: Eastern time. I think we'll do it again at 2 p.m.
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  Speaker 1: Eastern time.
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  Speaker 2: Clocks change at some point in October, November, so we'll
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  Speaker 2: have to adjust some of these things. I don't know
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  Speaker 2: when they change in Greece and then they change here.
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  Speaker 3: It's confusing.
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  Speaker 2: Anyway, the politician playing with time, always a bad idea.
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  Speaker 2: We are going to do Fauda, the whole series. So
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  Speaker 2: I know some of you have started. Try to get
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  Speaker 2: through season five. If you need to skip, skip season
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  Speaker 2: four in my view, although it does set up some
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  Speaker 2: aspects of season five, but I don't think they're that important.
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  Speaker 2: If you only watch one season, watch season five because
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  Speaker 2: we'll mostly be talking about that, although there's a sense
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: of which season one and two are kind of the
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  Speaker 2: grittiest and most important in many ways. But you've got
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: to watch season five because the whole issue of October
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  Speaker 2: 7th is a big chunk of that. So that'll be
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  Speaker 2: next Sunday, 2 p.m. Eastern time. The whole show will
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  Speaker 2: be followed. Of course, if you want us to review
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  Speaker 2: anything else during that show, it would kind of fit, right?
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: You can sponsor a movie review or a TV show
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: review or something like that. We will today be reviewing
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: Morton somebody. I forget that. I forget. Somebody and somebody.
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  Speaker 2: I've got it written down somewhere. And Yes Minister, one
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  Speaker 2: of my favorite shows, one of my favorite comedy shows
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  Speaker 2: of all time, Yes Minister, we'll review an episode of that.
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  Speaker 2: And then we will also review the other sci-fi cartoon one.
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  Speaker 2: But before that, hey, Nikos, how are you doing?
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  Speaker 4: I'm doing things I do for this podcast, reading a
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  Speaker 4: book that if it weren't the review... If we weren't
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  Speaker 4: about to review it, I'm not sure I would have
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  Speaker 4: finished it.
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  Speaker 2: You wouldn't have finished it. You might have started it,
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  Speaker 2: but you wouldn't have finished it. Yes.
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  Speaker 1: Which is not that I started the book really wanting
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  Speaker 1: to like it.
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  Speaker 4: So let's tell people we're going to review Gad Saad's book,
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  Speaker 4: Suicidal Empathy. And why don't you tell us, first of all,
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  Speaker 4: why bother review the book and why is it an
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  Speaker 4: important cultural moment that we need to comment on?
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  Speaker 2: Yes, I'll say I got through.
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  Speaker 3: Midpoint of chapter four.
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  Speaker 2: So I tried, I tried, but that's all the time
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  Speaker 2: I had. So God is a well-known, I think, intellectual
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  Speaker 2: on kind of the online right. He's a university professor
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  Speaker 2: from Canada. He teaches at a business school and is
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  Speaker 2: an expert on evolutionary psychology and as it applies to
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  Speaker 2: marketing and a big part of the book is, is
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  Speaker 2: I think his evolutionary psychology kind of framework. Uh, you know, I've, I,
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  Speaker 2: I've been on his show once and he was on
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  Speaker 2: my show once. This is, I think before COVID, um, he,
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  Speaker 2: he has, uh, you know, he's, he's, uh, he's very,
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  Speaker 2: very critical of the woke left and, and very good
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  Speaker 2: on things like Islam and the impact it has, potentially
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  Speaker 2: has on the West. He's very poor Israel. He is
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  Speaker 2: originally Jewish. He grew up in Lebanon and had to
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  Speaker 2: flee Lebanon at the beginning of the Lebanese Civil War.
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  Speaker 2: His parents were actually taken hostage by the PLO and
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  Speaker 2: you know, abused and then released. So there's a whole
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  Speaker 2: backstory there. So he has intimate knowledge of the Palestinian cause,
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  Speaker 2: particularly from the Lebanese civil war and for what it
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  Speaker 2: did to his family personally. But he has become, he's
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  Speaker 2: big online. He's really, really big on Twitter. He has
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  Speaker 2: a huge following. And I think his, and we'll talk
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  Speaker 2: about this when we talk about the book, but his
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  Speaker 2: particular style I think is particularly appropriate, particularly fitted for Twitter.
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  Speaker 2: He's got this sense of humor that offends a lot
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  Speaker 2: of people. I find it something funny, sometimes pretty silly,
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  Speaker 2: but he's got a robust sense of humor. So a
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  Speaker 2: lot of what he does on Twitter is aimed at
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  Speaker 2: being funny and making fun of the left um and
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  Speaker 2: and the islamists and uh he has this uh so
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  Speaker 2: he he's built i think a huge following based on
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  Speaker 2: really on that sense of humor and kind of one-line
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  Speaker 2: zingers uh he also has no problem saying exactly what
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  Speaker 2: he thinks often uh you know often that means a
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  Speaker 2: lot of um uh swearing and uh and and that's
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  Speaker 2: part of his style and it's in the book as
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  Speaker 2: well and um Yeah, I mean, he's been interviewed on Rogan,
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  Speaker 2: I believe, 10 times?
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  Speaker 1: 11 times.
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  Speaker 2: 11 times on Rogan. So I don't know anybody who's
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  Speaker 2: been on Rogan 11 times.
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  Speaker 4: 11 times before he wrote the book.
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  Speaker 1: I wouldn't be surprised if now they're 12.
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  Speaker 2: That's right. And so I've been on Rogan exactly zero,
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  Speaker 2: so he's beating me 12 to zero. That's a pretty
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  Speaker 2: high score by even in basketball or anywhere. And... He
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  Speaker 2: is another thing that would align him with Nikos. He
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  Speaker 2: is a football player. He's a You know, he's a
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  Speaker 2: good football player from all I can hear.
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  Speaker 4: I thought you would say he understands football because he's
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  Speaker 4: a big advocate of the truth that the best player
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  Speaker 4: of all time is Messi. And also, if you put
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  Speaker 4: any other current player in that category, it's an immediate
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  Speaker 4: dismissal of your credibility in discussing.
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  Speaker 2: I haven't followed Götze enough to know that he was
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  Speaker 2: such a fan of Messi. I followed him just enough
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  Speaker 2: to know that he is a huge football fan and,
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  Speaker 2: of course, played football himself and was supposedly a very
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  Speaker 2: good player in his youth. And what else do we know?
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  Speaker 2: What else do we want to say about Gutsite? Anything else?
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  Speaker 4: I just want to say that I respect how brave
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  Speaker 4: he is because he's doing all these things while being
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  Speaker 4: in academia. And while being in academia, he used to
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  Speaker 4: be in Canada for years. For the last year, he's
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  Speaker 4: moved to a U.S.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's left Canada because of these reasons, because he
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  Speaker 2: feels threatened and because academia has become very hostile towards him.
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  Speaker 1: And also for taxes reasons.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. Oh, that's right. Tax reasons is a big deal.
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  Speaker 2: But remember, he had tenure in academia. And that doesn't
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  Speaker 2: reduce the fact that he still needed to be courageous.
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  Speaker 2: But he did have tenure, so they couldn't exactly fire him.
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  Speaker 2: It would be hard for them to fire him for
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  Speaker 2: what he said. Um, but he, uh, but yes, he,
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  Speaker 2: you know, he goes out there and he goes in
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  Speaker 2: public and he goes in places and he's very well recognized. And, uh,
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  Speaker 2: I respect people that stand up for what they believe. I,
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  Speaker 2: I'm not a necessarily a fan of the style. Um, but, uh,
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  Speaker 2: but I, I, you know, the, he, he is, uh, and,
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  Speaker 2: and as we'll see, I don't agree with him in a,
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  Speaker 2: in very, very fundamental, you know, philosophical, you know, the
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  Speaker 2: whole philosophical foundation from which he comes from, I think
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  Speaker 2: is wrong. Um, And the consequence of that is he's also,
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  Speaker 2: and I think one of the reasons I haven't really
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  Speaker 2: had him on the show or been on his show
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  Speaker 2: since then is, you know, he came out as basically
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: a big Donald Trump fan. And, I mean, he's a
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  Speaker 2: huge supporter of Donald Trump and a, you know, I
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  Speaker 2: think an, what do you call it, an apologizer for
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: January 6th and for a lot of what happened, what
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: has happened. So, And the book, God, the book is, yeah,
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  Speaker 2: we'll get to that in terms of how one-sided and
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  Speaker 2: biased and, you know, and it doesn't make any attempt otherwise,
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  Speaker 2: but even when there are obvious examples that.
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  Speaker 3: He could take from other areas, you know, the only focus.
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  Speaker 2: Is attack the left. So a lot of his positions
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  Speaker 2: about the left and about Islam, I agree with. and
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  Speaker 2: about Israel and so on, and anti-Semitism, I agree with,
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  Speaker 2: even if I disagree to a large extent around the
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  Speaker 2: philosophical foundation of where he comes from, comes at it.
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  Speaker 4: And all this long introduction is just to convey to
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  Speaker 4: people that any negative point is not that we opened
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  Speaker 4: the book by saying, yeah, we're going to dunk on
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  Speaker 4: this guy. I'll admit that when I started reading it,
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  Speaker 4: Vance's book, I already knew I probably am not going
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  Speaker 4: to like this. I still read it, though, because that's
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  Speaker 4: my job. But with this book, I expected to like it.
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  Speaker 4: And not only that, my hope was that an attack
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  Speaker 4: on suicidal empathy is an attack on what Ayn Rand
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  Speaker 4: would call altruism this commitment to.
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  Speaker 1: Self-sacrifice or something good.
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  Speaker 4: So I thought, finally, finally, we start talking about altruism.
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  Speaker 4: We will see whether this is the case. And just
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  Speaker 4: to take it out of the way, people will ask,
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  Speaker 4: does he mention Ayn Rand? Actually, no, he only quotes
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  Speaker 4: here once, and you know how in the beginning of
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  Speaker 4: a chapter you have a subtitle usually with a quote?
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  Speaker 4: It's one quote by Rand, which is about the type of,
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  Speaker 4: you can evade reality, but not the results of reality,
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  Speaker 4: but nothing to do with altruism. Anyway, shall we get
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  Speaker 4: in and give the main.
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  Speaker 1: Thesis of the book?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, go ahead.
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  Speaker 4: So the book is, the main thesis is, empathy... Which
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  Speaker 4: is never clearly defined, but God believes that, look, you
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  Speaker 4: can all get what we mean by empathy.
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  Speaker 2: It's more than that. He actually talks about definitions of empathy.
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  Speaker 2: He says that the academic literature has 42 definitions, I think,
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  Speaker 2: something like that, of empathy. And then I expected him
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  Speaker 2: to say, well, and here's what I think empathy actually is, right?
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  Speaker 2: So there are all these definitions. Some of them must
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  Speaker 2: be right. Some of them must be wrong.
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  Speaker 3: So here's my view. But he never does, which.
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  Speaker 2: Starts off not so good because it's always going to
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  Speaker 2: be a little bit of a floating concept because it's
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  Speaker 2: not defined. It's really, really, really important for those of
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  Speaker 2: you about to write books to define what you're talking about.
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  Speaker 2: By the way, there is a book called Pathological Altruism.
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  Speaker 2: that a philosopher by the name of Barbara Oakley wrote.
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  Speaker 2: I don't know if you've ever read it, but that
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  Speaker 2: would be.
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  Speaker 4: I came across it while researching this book. It's a
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  Speaker 4: book that usually he gets asked about in podcasts, but
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  Speaker 4: to tell you the truth, I haven't read the book.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it would be interesting to look at that in
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  Speaker 2: terms of... And then there's another book by a guy
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  Speaker 2: named Paul Bloom called Against Empathy, which is the case
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  Speaker 2: for rational compassion. So it would be interesting if there
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  Speaker 2: may be better books... about this kind of broad topic,
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  Speaker 2: critiques of altruism, in a sense, out there in the culture.
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  Speaker 2: Because unfortunately, this one doesn't quite make it.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, my suspicion is the other books are not really
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  Speaker 4: critiques of altruism. It is how altruism is used for
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  Speaker 4: performative or self-destructive reasons. But I don't want to comment
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  Speaker 4: on books I haven't read. Although Zizek famously said, I
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  Speaker 4: don't have to watch a movie to criticize this.
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  Speaker 1: I'm a theorist.
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  Speaker 2: We want to elevate ourselves a little above Zizek.
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  Speaker 1: Yes.
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  Speaker 2: Okay.
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  Speaker 4: So the main thesis of the book. So empathy, which
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  Speaker 4: again is never defined, but you get it, is the message.
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  Speaker 4: Empathy is good. Empathy is good and there are evolutionary
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  Speaker 4: reasons why we have developed this feeling of empathy. And
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  Speaker 4: the I think he means being able to relate to
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  Speaker 4: someone else's feelings or suffering or struggle.
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  Speaker 2: And it's important that he also says that it's essential
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  Speaker 2: for morality. That is, it's essential for a moral sense,
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  Speaker 2: which we'll get to, right?
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  Speaker 1: It's though at the level of the instinct, not at
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  Speaker 1: the level.
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  Speaker 2: Of which shows it. Again, he never differentiates, right? He
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  Speaker 2: never tells you. what is at the level of instinct,
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  Speaker 2: and this is true of his other work, he's never
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  Speaker 2: really telling you what is the level of automatized by
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  Speaker 2: evolution and what's within your choice. He assumes you have
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  Speaker 2: a choice, but it's not clear that he really believes
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: in choice. His whole position of free will ultimately is
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: a little ambiguous. So it's problematic, right? If you read
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: his work on Marketing, we're easily manipulated beings because we're
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  Speaker 2: evolutionarily conditioned. There's a lot of instinct there.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's the whole field of behavioral economics, which I'm
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  Speaker 4: not a big fan, but that's for another show. Okay,
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  Speaker 4: so again, trying to give the thesis. So empathy is good,
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  Speaker 4: but everything in life needs to be in proportion. We
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  Speaker 4: should not go to extremes. What is happening is that
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  Speaker 4: there is too much empathy going around these days. So
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  Speaker 4: people become more empathetic than they should, which begs the question,
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  Speaker 4: how empathetic shall we be?
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  Speaker 1: We'll get to that.
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  Speaker 4: But people are more empathetic than they should for reasons
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  Speaker 4: ranging from virtue signaling to people being maybe too idealistic.
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  Speaker 4: And There's so much empathy that it becomes self-destructive for
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  Speaker 4: our societies in the same way that it can become self-destructive.
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  Speaker 1: For an individual. For example, if I decide to host
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  Speaker 1: here all.
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  Speaker 4: The drug abusers in my neighborhood, it's probably not going
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  Speaker 4: to work very well for me. The same thing can
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  Speaker 4: happen to a society. And as he says, societies collapse
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  Speaker 4: by suicide. And here comes the suicidal part of the empathy.
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  Speaker 4: So he calls this... the tendency to be over-empathetic to
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  Speaker 4: our detriment, suicidal empathy. And this framework, and this approach
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  Speaker 4: becomes the framework through which he sees everything which is
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  Speaker 4: bad in today's culture. He interprets all of the culture
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  Speaker 4: walls through this framework that for various reasons we've become
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  Speaker 4: too empathetic And we've taken empathy to an extreme. Empathy
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  Speaker 4: is good, but too much empathy turns to our disadvantage.
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  Speaker 4: And this is how we've opened the gates to figuratively
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  Speaker 4: or literally barbarians.
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  Speaker 1: And this is how the West is collapsing.
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  Speaker 2: And this is primarily, he says, because all his examples
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  Speaker 2: are such, but this is almost exclusively something that comes
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  Speaker 2: from the left. And, you know, this is driven by,
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  Speaker 2: you know, clearly a leftist ideology that is codified, you know,
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  Speaker 2: kind of empathy as the standard, and you get that
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  Speaker 2: in intersectionality. So he brings up kind of the intersectionality
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  Speaker 2: points of oppressor-oppressed and post-colonialism and all this stuff as
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  Speaker 2: manifestations of this, you know, suicidal empathy.
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  Speaker 4: And very quickly, what leads to suicidal empathy? One thing
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  Speaker 4: that leads to that is guilt. Now, as successful Westerners,
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  Speaker 4: we feel guilt. I wish he would went a bit
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  Speaker 4: deeper there. Why do we feel guilt? Plus, and this
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  Speaker 4: is very interesting, he says one of the reasons for
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  Speaker 4: this orgy of suicidal empathy is we are not using
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  Speaker 4: our rational mind as much as we should. Which begs
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  Speaker 4: the question, if we used it more, what would be
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  Speaker 4: the moral system that will take us? He doesn't answer that.
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  Speaker 4: It's teasing. You think he's getting somewhere, but he's not
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  Speaker 4: pulling the trigger to tell you that... Maybe there is
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  Speaker 4: a moral North Star, which is pursue your own self-interest.
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  Speaker 1: He never does that.
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  Speaker 2: Well, he does worse than that, right? Because he tells
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  Speaker 2: you that, yeah, all of this sounds a little like altruism,
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  Speaker 2: but altruism is good. This is a perversion of altruism.
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  Speaker 2: This isn't altruism. Altruism is morality. He's very much holding
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  Speaker 2: to that and grasping at that. And this is somehow...
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  Speaker 2: a perversion of, an emotionalist version of, of altruism, but
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  Speaker 2: he's not giving up on altruism at all.
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  Speaker 1: And he makes something even worse.
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  Speaker 4: He, always on the back of, on the background of
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  Speaker 4: the book is, altruism is good, but if you take
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  Speaker 4: something good too far, then you can't see how it
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  Speaker 4: becomes a bad thing. So he says, think of suicidal
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  Speaker 4: empathy like The trend of someone like Narcissus. What's the
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  Speaker 4: name of the guy? People are going to tell me
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  Speaker 4: I'm not using... It's a Greek word, Narcissus. But how
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  Speaker 4: do you call him in English?
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  Speaker 1: Narcissus.
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  Speaker 2: I don't know. It doesn't matter.
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  Speaker 4: Anyway, the guy from which the term narcissism comes out.
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  Speaker 4: So what does Narcissus in Greek or however you people
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  Speaker 4: call him? He falls in love so much with his
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  Speaker 4: own beauty or with his own virtue. That it blinds
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  Speaker 4: him to the effects of his actions and he falls
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  Speaker 4: in the river and he drowns himself. But notice, it
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  Speaker 4: comes from a positive, from the pursuit of something good, beauty.
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  Speaker 4: In the same way, the modern Western and leftist, obviously
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  Speaker 4: altruism is good. Because again, since empathy is not properly defined...
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  Speaker 4: I am entitled to interpret it as altruism. So obviously
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  Speaker 4: altruism is good. We know that altruism is going to
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  Speaker 4: give us moral points. Even if we do it to
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  Speaker 4: show off, the understanding is that altruism is something good
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  Speaker 4: otherwise why would it give you moral points yep and
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  Speaker 4: this we become so altruistic that we take it too
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  Speaker 4: far we take it too far and see again it's
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  Speaker 4: unquestionable that altruism is a virtue And I'll leave you
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  Speaker 4: with one quote and then you.
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  Speaker 1: Can you can take it from here and criticize the
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  Speaker 1: main thesis.
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: At some point in the book, he says something like kindness,
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: generosity and empathy. They're all good, but they must be
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: strategically offered, strategically offered. That's very interesting because strategy means that, again,
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: you have a North Star, you have a point of reference.
• 20:33
  Speaker 4: So based on what standards do you judge how to
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: strategically be kind or generous or compassionate? I mean, I
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: can tell you what is the answer, for example, that
• 20:44
  Speaker 4: a philosophy like objectivism will give.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: It says you want your life to be good.
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: Therefore, the people or animals that add value to your life,
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: be kind, be generous, be compassionate towards them.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: And this is a very clear northern star.
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: Now, how you apply it might be difficult, but the
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: north star there is very clear. The strategic orientation is
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: very clear. I want to live a happy life. Here,
• 21:09
  Speaker 4: the strategic orientation is not clear at all.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think implied is a certain collectivism, right?
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: We want society to be better, better off. So we
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: need to avoid things that will lead to suicide, to
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: its destruction, to bad elements being reinforced in it. So
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: we want altruism, but as long as altruism doesn't literally
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: lead to death, to our society, it's not even at
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: the individual level, to our society crumbling and being destroyed. So,
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: and notice he never really delves into this question, right?
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: I mean, now maybe that's after chapter four, but I
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: don't think so. He never delves into the question of, okay,
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: there's this morality, altruism, and I'm criticizing a certain application
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: of it. What's the right application? It never goes there, right?
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: There's never that deeper moral philosophical perspective. It's, I mean, sadly...
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: Chapter after chapter of chapter of, you know, just just
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: concretes all aimed at a particular audience, basically red meat
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: for anybody who hates the left, you know, and very
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: little actual. You know, it would be interesting to know
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: what Gad Saad thinks.
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: I know what I think. I know what you think,
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: I think, about why.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: The left has gone this direction or why people behave
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: in this way or why they're sympathetic to Islam or whatever.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: But we never really know why Gad Saad thinks it.
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: Somehow there's a virus, right, that infected them called suicidal empathy,
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: and they're exhibiting it in all these different ways. So
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: he never... He never goes deep into this, even psychologically.
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: He never really explains it. You know, somebody says he's
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: not a philosopher. Why should he do that? Well, because
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: otherwise his explanation is meaningless, right? Unless you try to
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: ground it in something, then it's completely floating and it
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: leaves you alone. And all it is, all the book is,
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: is red meat for people people to, you know, here's
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: another example. Here's another example.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: Cool.
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: You know, I already hate Muslims. Now I've got five
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: more concretes to base my hatred. And I hate the
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: left already. Here's 200 more concretes on which to base
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: the hatred. You know, what I found interesting is at
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: some point he comes close to talking about Christianity and
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: that Christianity is somehow connected here.
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: And of course it is.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: We know it is.
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: We know it is.
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: And if you want to dig, put aside philosophy, it's
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: a big term. If you want to dig just in
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: terms of moral code and in terms of self-sacrifice and
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: in terms of just these ideas, you're going to encounter
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: Christianity and you're going to have to really deal with
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: it in a robust way. And he doesn't. It's superficial.
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: He covers it quickly and moves on. Again, if you
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: want to find the roots of Of this, it's in Christianity,
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: of suicidal empathy. It's in Christianity. It's the meek shall
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: inherit the earth. It's, you know, which he never mentions.
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: It's all these commandments. It's the, you know, what do
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: you call it? Sermon on the Mount. That would have
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: been interesting. Find the source of it. Show us how
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: it manifests. But just to show us example after example.
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: And then I'll get to the examples later because I
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: want to critique his examples as well because I think he,
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: I mean, there's one thing that he does that I find...
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: I mean, I hate to say this, but it's dishonest. And,
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: you know, so I'm going to have to talk about
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: that because I think it's just... It has horrific consequences.
• 25:05
  Speaker 4: One comment on what our friend said. Okay, don't expect
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: too much. He's not a philosopher. It is not that
• 25:11
  Speaker 4: the evolutionary psychology takes us up to a level, but
• 25:15
  Speaker 4: then we need something more.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: It is that it is actually... doesn't give us anything.
• 25:24
  Speaker 4: It gives us a conflict and it gives us a
• 25:25
  Speaker 4: contradiction that it doesn't make it a good tool enough
• 25:30
  Speaker 4: to criticize what he wants to criticize.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: And we'll see. So the most important chapter, in my view,
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: is the one.
• 25:36
  Speaker 4: Where he tries to criticize socialism. I think this comes
• 25:39
  Speaker 4: after chapter four, so you didn't get there.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: But we will see how, with his approach.
• 25:45
  Speaker 4: A, he cannot properly criticize socialism. B, if you use
• 25:49
  Speaker 4: evolutionary psychology, you can get to the conclusion both that
• 25:53
  Speaker 4: socialism is our natural state of things and that socialism
• 25:58
  Speaker 4: is not compatible with our nature.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: Using this, you can get to both. And one more
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: thing about.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: And he does almost, right? I mean, he suggested socialism.
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: You know, if we take it too far, it becomes socialism. But,
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: you know, Exactly. So he's granting them all premise of socialism.
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: You know, he grants them all premise. And he says, yeah,
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: we're just not wired enough to be that good.
• 26:26
  Speaker 4: And you mentioned Christianity. At some point, he makes... Because
• 26:31
  Speaker 4: something else which is missing there is the notion of justice.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: Justice. Because for me, justice is more important than empathy
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: in a way, right?
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: Much more important.
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: Yes, I sympathize with the... But I mean, even to
• 26:46
  Speaker 4: understand people were sympathetic. I'm very sympathetic to the plight of...
• 26:52
  Speaker 4: Someone I don't know who, you know, gets an illness.
• 26:55
  Speaker 4: I mean, we see on Twitter these people who say, oh,
• 26:57
  Speaker 4: I've beaten this illness and we feel this genuine joy
• 27:00
  Speaker 4: because we assume that's a good person.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: They shouldn't suffer.
• 27:04
  Speaker 4: But then, I don't know, if like Yaya Sinwar gets killed,
• 27:07
  Speaker 4: we don't feel, I didn't feel empathy because he's a
• 27:10
  Speaker 4: horrible person who only brought the distraction and pain. So
• 27:14
  Speaker 4: at some point he says, though, that revenge and retribution is,
• 27:20
  Speaker 4: something that I would call justice, he says, we have
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: them for evolutionary reasons, because if we don't have them,
• 27:28
  Speaker 4: the other tribe is going to beat our tribe.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: So he says, I'm only.
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: Slightly paraphrasing, but he says something like, God forgiving everything
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: might be morally superior in theory, but in practice, it
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: gives you evolutionary disadvantage. You see, again, you have this
• 27:46
  Speaker 4: dichotomy that yeah in this field of morality which is
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: abstract and ideas yeah obviously altruism is good but practically
• 27:56
  Speaker 4: the persians are going to destroy us therefore you know
• 27:59
  Speaker 4: don't have a you know be vindictive against the persians
• 28:03
  Speaker 4: they kicked our ass in thermopylae now in the battle
• 28:06
  Speaker 4: of uh plates we go and take our revenge again
• 28:11
  Speaker 4: nothing to do with justice nothing to it's just This evolutionary,
• 28:15
  Speaker 4: this tribe is a danger.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: We join forces and we fight back.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, in a sense, I don't know what
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: choices mean. And we had a little bit of it
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: when he was on my show. I was on his.
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: I can't remember. We had a bit of a discussion
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: about free will. I can't, you know, and it didn't go,
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: you know, we're not on the same page in terms
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: of what free will means and to what extent are
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: people actually in control of their own lives? To what
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: extent do we actually make choices? is very unclear. And
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: the book, like most of these people who take evolution
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: and psychology very seriously, it's constantly back and forth, and
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: you don't really get a sense of what's within the
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: realm of your ability to choose and what's pre-programmed into you.
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: But yeah, I mean, he concedes way too much. Again,
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: he says altruism is the moral code, so this is
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: not putting words into his his mouth. Altruism is morality,
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: but he never defines altruism. He doesn't define really anything,
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: which is, of course, problematic. Maybe what he means by
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: altruism is being kind and nice and friendly, but he
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: never defines it. He never defines his moral system. So
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: you get real problems with that. It did remind me,
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: as I was reading it, and he was talking a
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: little bit about Christianity and some other stuff, I was thinking,
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: I wonder what he thinks about of Charlie Cook's wife
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: in at the memorial for Charlie Cook tearfully forgiving his murderer.
• 29:55
  Speaker 4: Right Yeah, that was such a dark moment where, on
• 29:59
  Speaker 4: the one hand, you don't want to, you know, criticize
• 30:01
  Speaker 4: a grieving woman who has such a big loss. But
• 30:04
  Speaker 4: at the same time, I found this almost monstrous, if
• 30:09
  Speaker 4: you think about it. It's why forgive? So forgive, it's like, OK,
• 30:13
  Speaker 4: now we're good again. What exactly does this mean to forgive?
• 30:16
  Speaker 4: By the way, if you forgive them. Should the state.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: Also forgive them? Why not?
• 30:21
  Speaker 4: Why should the law be completely divorced from morality? Maybe
• 30:25
  Speaker 4: what if the judge also forgives him? What if the
• 30:28
  Speaker 4: judge says I'm so moved by Erica Kirk's gesture? I
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: also forgive you. Why is he a better Christmas? I
• 30:36
  Speaker 4: also forgive you.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's.
• 30:40
  Speaker 4: It's so bad, but again, out of issue of a,
• 30:43
  Speaker 4: you know, good taste, I don't want to comment on it.
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: As you know, I don't have good taste. So at
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: the time I, I, I lamb blasted her for it
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: because I think it's horrible. And I have very little
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: sympathy for these Christians, even though, you know, I knew
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: Charlie and, and, and kind of like Charlie, particularly when
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: he was younger.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: And he liked you in the early days.
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: He did. He very much, we had a good relationship
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: in the early days, but, um, Yeah, I mean, and
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: this is the thing. This is the thing that strikes
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: you right off the bat. He only criticizes the left.
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: There's nothing here about Christianity. There's nothing here about the
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: forgiveness that's involved in the ultimate forgiveness. What's the ultimate
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: act of forgiveness? Jesus on the cross, right? You know,
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: talk about injustice, the ultimate act of injustice. Is Jesus
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: dying for all of our sins? Talk about suicidal empathy.
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: That was suicide. While empathizing with all of us. Our sins.
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: He's empathetic with our sins. So he's doing it to
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: forgive us. It's just unbelievable that the obvious examples are
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: all Christian examples. And that isn't even included. No criticism whatsoever.
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: of any examples from the right, no criticism of, I
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: don't know, not winning wars or not going all the
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: way or for very similar reasons, just war theory, which
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: the right embraces as well as the left. There's so
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: many things that you could criticize and yet nothing, zero zilch.
• 32:27
  Speaker 4: A reason for this could be, I mean, there are
• 32:29
  Speaker 4: two reasons there. The first is the obvious reason is
• 32:32
  Speaker 4: that he hasn't got the tools. The only tool he
• 32:35
  Speaker 4: has actually is what he considers common sense. And again,
• 32:39
  Speaker 4: in the madness out there, he's on the better side,
• 32:42
  Speaker 4: to put it this way, on most of the issues.
• 32:45
  Speaker 4: But beyond this quote, common sense, the only tool he
• 32:47
  Speaker 4: has is this evolutionary theory.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: And as we will see, this cannot provide answers. For example...
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: He claims that one of the reasons of.
• 33:00
  Speaker 4: Suicidal empathy is virtue signaling, which means that when you
• 33:03
  Speaker 4: show how good you are towards refugees or towards the
• 33:07
  Speaker 4: people who want to kill you, you get credibility and
• 33:11
  Speaker 4: you get a dopamine hit. But this just kicks the
• 33:14
  Speaker 4: ball further down the road. With the question, why do
• 33:18
  Speaker 4: you get credibility points and a dopamine hit from the
• 33:21
  Speaker 4: altruistic point of view? The answer, obviously, there is Christianity can't.
• 33:26
  Speaker 4: You can give different answers. But this is the big
• 33:28
  Speaker 4: question to be asked. Why is it that you get,
• 33:32
  Speaker 4: why is the second-handed thing to show, oh, I care
• 33:34
  Speaker 4: so much about the people who want to kill me?
• 33:38
  Speaker 4: That should be the beginning of the discussion.
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: Yep. But for Dr.
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: Saad, it's the end of the discussion.
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: So it has no intellectual depth. I mean, it's very shallow.
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: It stays at the same level throughout the four chapters
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: I read. Never goes deeper. Never looks to answer these
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: kind of questions that are deeper and more interesting and
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: more important. And maybe he's not qualified to go deeper,
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: but then I'm not sure why the book has value, right? Again,
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: the book is primarily just a list of grievances. about
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: the left and examples about stupid things the left does.
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: To anybody who knows anything about the cultural wars and
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: is on God's side, who I assume are the readers,
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: you know all these examples. You're critical of all these
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: examples already. So you gain nothing. There's nothing to learn
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: from it. It's not only that.
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: It's not only that.
• 34:32
  Speaker 4: You could say that there is an intellectual who throws
• 34:36
  Speaker 4: punches in the culture war in an intellectual way. a
• 34:41
  Speaker 4: robust way. This is, let's say, what Douglas Murray does. Here,
• 34:45
  Speaker 4: you don't even have that. Here, you have... He targets
• 34:50
  Speaker 4: the lowest common denominator of the worst people in the
• 34:54
  Speaker 4: culture wars. For example, in the book, all the time,
• 34:57
  Speaker 4: he references... tweets that he wrote he references elon musk's
• 35:03
  Speaker 4: replies for the love of god he references a discussion
• 35:07
  Speaker 4: with megan kelly on how trudeau is probably not good
• 35:11
  Speaker 4: in bed he has these comments about kamala harry's how
• 35:15
  Speaker 4: she's like this giggly i mean it's serious things sorry
• 35:21
  Speaker 4: it's unserious It's not only it's unserious, it's also not funny.
• 35:27
  Speaker 4: If I can get it from the generates on Twitter,
• 35:31
  Speaker 4: I don't need to get it from a good intellectual
• 35:34
  Speaker 4: who is trying to guide me through these things. So
• 35:36
  Speaker 4: instead of guiding me through these things and telling me, hey,
• 35:40
  Speaker 4: it is this way because of this and that, it's
• 35:41
  Speaker 4: like he's guiding me. He's like, ha ha, look at
• 35:43
  Speaker 4: this guy, a drunk guy here, a drunk guy there.
• 35:45
  Speaker 4: So it's at that level. And again, if you have
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: any aspiration of understanding things, It's not even funny.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: And that's why.
• 35:54
  Speaker 4: I told you, I think I emailed you on Monday
• 35:57
  Speaker 4: and I told you, is it too late to pull
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: the plug on this? Because I, it was at some
• 36:02
  Speaker 4: point it was becoming so cringe. I mean, how many
• 36:05
  Speaker 4: times can you read jokes about Kamala Harris or about,
• 36:10
  Speaker 4: or at least, you know, with DI programs, when you're
• 36:13
  Speaker 4: in an airplane and you will be good to know
• 36:15
  Speaker 4: that the airplane is driven by an obese, deaf mulatto, whatever.
• 36:21
  Speaker 4: It's like, okay, yeah, we heard this, joke a million
• 36:23
  Speaker 4: times on Twitter. I don't mean it also.
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: In this book.
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, that's the thing. It's, well, it's juvenile
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: in that sense. And there's at least one issue, and
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: I'm sure there's more than one issue, but one issue
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: I'm sensitive to, so I picked up on, where it's
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: just dishonest. And that's in his whole treatment of immigration, right?
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: And this is typical of the right, but he does
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: it worse than anybody. And He he lists immigration as
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: an open borders, you know, people coming in as an
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: obvious example of of suicide empathy. And then all the
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: examples he uses, every single one of them is Islamic immigration.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: And primarily in Europe, but Islamic immigration.
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: Once in a while, you'll also find, you know, the
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: one case of a rapist or murderer or something like
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: that who happened to be an immigrant who came across
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: the board. So no actual discussion of the issue. No
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: discussion of the difference between the United States and Europe.
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: No discussion of Muslim immigrants versus, I don't know, Venezuelan
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: immigrants running away from a communist regime to attain liberty
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: in the United States.
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: No differentiation.
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: They're all the same. All immigrants are Muslim immigrants. All
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: Muslim immigrants are rapists, criminals, bad guys. He's also he's
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: also very much on the on the he constantly it's
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: very collectivist.
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: The whole discussion is very collectivist.
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: He's constantly on this assumption of there's a equivocation between religion, i.e.
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: a set of ideas and religion. you know, in a sense,
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: your ethnic background or where you're from. And it's not
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: clear what he's talking about when, right? You know, is
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: he criticizing you because you have bad ideas and therefore
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: you can't assimilate? Or you can't assimilate because you come... Now,
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: he says, look, I'm an immigrant. I have dark skin.
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: That doesn't change the fact that he's being bigoted and
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: being collectivist in the way he approaches this. You know...
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: You can criticize Islamic immigration, and a lot of what
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: he says is right about Islamic immigration, although there are
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: a lot of problems with even that. But his discussion
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: of immigration broadly and his merging of the two, it just,
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: you know, I'm super sensitive to that stuff, and I
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: found it just horrible, just horrible.
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: You called it dishonesty.
• 39:03
  Speaker 4: There was another moment that, I don't know if I
• 39:05
  Speaker 4: would call it dishonesty, but for me, it was the
• 39:07
  Speaker 4: red flag. At some point he mentions, he talks about COVID,
• 39:12
  Speaker 4: actually a very good example of orgiastic altruism. So I'm
• 39:16
  Speaker 4: with him on that. And somewhere there he throws something
• 39:20
  Speaker 4: about the vaccines. But he doesn't elaborate. So he doesn't
• 39:25
  Speaker 4: tell us, so the vaccines didn't work, maybe they're dangerous.
• 39:30
  Speaker 4: but he just throws it somewhere there it's almost as
• 39:34
  Speaker 4: You know, I hate the term dog whistle, but it's
• 39:37
  Speaker 4: like I'm throwing you a little bone.
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: You will get it. I'm not going to tell you
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: what I mean, but wink, wink, you get it.
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: The right people will get it, yes.
• 39:46
  Speaker 4: The right people will, literally the right people will get it.
• 39:51
  Speaker 4: So again, we criticizing him on these things is actually
• 39:57
  Speaker 4: a gesture of respect towards him, that we expected more
• 40:01
  Speaker 4: of you because we treat you like a serious intellectual.
• 40:04
  Speaker 4: We would not have this discussion if Megyn Kelly wrote
• 40:08
  Speaker 4: a book and it became a bestseller. It's like, okay,
• 40:10
  Speaker 4: it's Megyn Kelly, what do you expect? But here you
• 40:12
  Speaker 4: have an intellectual who tries to deal with a super
• 40:15
  Speaker 4: important topic. This is why we are sensitive with these things,
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: because we expect more.
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree completely. I mean, you know, I find,
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: you know, if I wasn't reading it for this purpose,
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: after chapter one, I would have shut it down. I
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: wouldn't have read it. It added nothing to my understanding
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: of what's going on in the world. It just reframed
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: my view of altruism into something called suicidal empathy, which
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: doesn't really add anything. At the end of the day,
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: all of this is caused by altruism. And we could
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: discuss different ways in which altruism is applied and why
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: sometimes it's applied in this way and sometimes it's applied
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: in that way and what motivates the left to apply
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: it in a particular way and the right to apply
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: it in a different way in the middle. to apply
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: it in a third way. Those are all interesting discussions.
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: I also, I mean, I'm very skeptical of evolutionary psychology.
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: You know, well, and they also, of course, they caricature
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: what is meant, what I think Locke meant and what
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: Ayn Rand meant. by tabula rasa. Nobody means by tabula
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: rasa you're born with nothing, you know, but Ayn Rand
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: is very clear about what you're not born with. You're
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: not born with ideas, and you can't be born with emotions,
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: which are consequence of ideas, consequence of conclusions. But it
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: doesn't mean you're not born with inclinations. It doesn't mean
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: you're not born with lots of different things that, unfortunately,
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: I wish these people would These people in biology would
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: think about how to characterize what the things we are
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: born with rather than imply that we're born with ideas,
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: which goes back to Plato, or that we're born with
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: emotions like empathy. We have a capacity. We have the
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: capacity to put ourselves in somebody else's shoes, in a sense,
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: which is what empathy, I think, suggests. That capacity is
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: because we're a conceptual being, because we can project outside
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: of ourselves, because we're conceptual. And then the question is,
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: what is the value of doing that? And that's an
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: interesting conversation. What is the value of having empathy? And
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: it certainly does have a value. It has a value
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: in terms of the kind of relationships you want to
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: build with people and understanding other people to be a
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: good trader with them, spiritually emotionally and materially is worthwhile.
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: You want to know your customer in a sense, right?
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: If you're a businessman and you want to know what
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: your loved one is thinking or feeling so that you
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: can relate to them. You want to be able to
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: provide them with visibility. So there's so many interesting issues
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: around empathy. And then there are really, really interesting issues
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: about how altruism applies in various ways. And there are
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: books to be written about either one of these topics.
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: This book adds nothing to the conversation other than, again,
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: a list of grievances the right has against the left,
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: which I think they enjoy. I think what happens is,
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: and I see this in the chat, you know, people
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: just enjoy it's going after the left. Just let's destroy
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: the left. Let's make fun. How many transgender jokes did
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: you get into one chapter? You know, isn't this cool?
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: And it's not serious. So this is not an intellectually
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: serious book. Somebody called it intellectually self-indulgent. I think that's true.
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: I mean, it now relates to the self-indulgency about his
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: referring to his own tweets constantly and his interviews and
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: his books and his own stuff. But it's just not–
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: it doesn't make an argument. It doesn't have– it doesn't
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: make an interesting argument, even as psychology. It doesn't make–
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: so put aside philosophy. Let's say he's not a philosopher. Fine.
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: Let's say he's an evolutionary biologist. Imagine an evolutionary biologist
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: writing a serious book about suicidal empathy.
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: Then he would define empathy.
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: He would walk through the survival benefits of empathy. He
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: would show how empathy throughout, in different periods in history maybe,
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: or across different groups worked, and how sometimes it becomes suicidal,
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: and why the left, for some reason, and maybe doesn't
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: even know why, has embraced suicidal empathy completely well. The
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: right hasn't, maybe. I mean, there's a book there, right?
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: Even from this, what I think is a very flawed premise,
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: this isn't it. This is just the rambling of somebody
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: who wants to put out something that, again, is red
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: meat for people already following. This is not for the
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: general public. No general public person has read this book.
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: The only people who are going to read this book
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: are people who already agree with it.
• 45:12
  Speaker 4: And you said that the book did not add something
• 45:15
  Speaker 4: towards your understanding.
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: This would make it a neutral book.
• 45:20
  Speaker 4: I think it's worse than that because you can read
• 45:23
  Speaker 4: this book and walk out even more confused. And I'll
• 45:26
  Speaker 4: give you the most important example of the book shortcomings.
• 45:31
  Speaker 4: The chapter on socialism. So here's how he explains the
• 45:35
  Speaker 4: failures of socialism. He says, we are evolutionary wired for empathy.
• 45:41
  Speaker 4: And particularly he says women, therefore we expect women will
• 45:44
  Speaker 4: be more geared towards socialism. However, the problem is that
• 45:47
  Speaker 4: socialism requires of us to show empathy to people who
• 45:52
  Speaker 4: are outside of our clan, family, tribe. And then it
• 45:56
  Speaker 4: becomes difficult for us because we're not that evolutionary wire.
• 46:01
  Speaker 4: And this is why socialists need to resort to violence.
• 46:06
  Speaker 4: I mean, I'm happy to sacrifice for the next three roads.
• 46:11
  Speaker 4: But from the fourth road over there, I don't walk
• 46:14
  Speaker 4: that often. So now sacrifice becomes too much.
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: And this is.
• 46:18
  Speaker 4: Why the state needs to coerce me and send me
• 46:21
  Speaker 4: to the gulag, which are the examples that he uses.
• 46:25
  Speaker 4: And therefore, though, if you dig a bit deeper, the
• 46:30
  Speaker 4: conclusion is that we are not good enough for socialism.
• 46:37
  Speaker 4: As he puts it, quoting someone else, So communism is
• 46:42
  Speaker 4: the right system for the wrong species. Ants, the bugs,
• 46:48
  Speaker 4: ants are good for socialism, but we aren't. But you
• 46:52
  Speaker 4: know what the idealistic young person will say? And this
• 46:56
  Speaker 4: is what makes it even more brilliant and heroic and
• 47:00
  Speaker 4: idealistic that we are socialists. We are so good. Why
• 47:03
  Speaker 4: should we try to overcome nature? This is what the
• 47:06
  Speaker 4: elderly Bolsheviks did. And this inspired so many people. Why
• 47:10
  Speaker 4: should we be tied by our evolution? We're going to
• 47:14
  Speaker 4: have an evolutionary leap forward. And again, God's side there
• 47:18
  Speaker 4: would have absolutely zero moral argument to make against these
• 47:24
  Speaker 4: young people. We come back again to the same trope
• 47:29
  Speaker 4: that I hate so much, that socialism It's too idealistic.
• 47:34
  Speaker 4: It's if only it could work, but it does not work. Now,
• 47:38
  Speaker 4: he doesn't say if only it could work because he's
• 47:41
  Speaker 4: on the opposite side. But this is what someone reading
• 47:44
  Speaker 4: his book could imply. We're almost there evolutionary, but socialism
• 47:50
  Speaker 4: takes it to the next step. If sacrifice is good,
• 47:53
  Speaker 4: why should I sacrifice for my clan, but not for
• 47:57
  Speaker 4: the next....
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: Chain beyond that clan, the next circle of kin.
• 48:04
  Speaker 4: God said, we'll say you won't do this because of evolution.
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but why, if it is good, I should at
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: least try for it.
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: And then he has no answer. And this is the point.
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: If you believe in choice, if you believe we're not
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: completely determined by evolution, then yeah, let's try and improve
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: on what our genes have left us. But it's interesting
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: that this trope about socialism, I hear it for so
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: many free market people, they think they've really nailed it.
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: They tell me, I don't know if you've heard this,
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: they tell me, socialism is great in the family. In
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: the family, we have socialism. Teach according to his needs,
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: from each according to his ability. Like you work hard
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: and you give it to your children because the children
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: need it and so on. And, you know, it's just
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: not good on a society level. It's good in the family.
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: I think they attribute this to Hayek. I don't know
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: if Hayek ever said this. So it's good in family,
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: bad in society.
• 49:00
  Speaker 4: So socialism there is literally a synonym of love. Because
• 49:03
  Speaker 4: what you have in family is literally love. There's nothing
• 49:06
  Speaker 4: else there. I mean, nothing fancy. You don't need anything fancy.
• 49:10
  Speaker 4: You love them so much that you do these things.
• 49:13
  Speaker 4: Why do you need to call it socialism?
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but if you just had a greater capacity to love...
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: then you could love more people than just your family.
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: This is what Jesus asks you to do. Indeed, Jesus
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: tells you to leave your family in order to embrace
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: and love your brother, which is not your biological brother.
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: Your brother in Christianity is all of humanity. He urges
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: you to leave your family. Literally, his followers had to
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: leave their family and join him in loving everybody. And
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: if you love everybody, then you have to give them
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: according to what they need, and you have to work
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: hard according to your ability. So communism is just the
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: extension of this. And look, it doesn't work in any capacity.
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: I mean, you know, you... you know, part of raising
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: kids is not giving them everything they claim they need, right?
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's, you know, my house was not a
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: socialist democracy, at least. Maybe it was a socialist dictatorship.
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: You know, it doesn't work that way. And to apply
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: a political concept to a non-political entity, right, which is
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: the family, there's nothing about, you know, there's nothing political
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: about a family.
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: It's just silly.
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: It's just silly. But They want to legitimize socialism. They
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: want to make it feel good because at the core,
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: they can't really object to the altruism. They can't really
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: object to the idea, well, if you're capable and you
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: have a lot, you really should give it. You really
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: should give it. Now, it doesn't work because you're not
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: providing a price signal. So, you know, information doesn't get... So, yeah,
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: we don't want that. We want... it's just unconvincing and uninspiring,
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: as you always say. You know, you can't defend capitalism
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: that way. You can't attack socialism that way.
• 51:13
  Speaker 4: If only there was a documentary that will come out
• 51:15
  Speaker 4: soon that addresses this thing.
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: Oh, wait, there is.
• 51:19
  Speaker 4: Now, again, to be very fair with Dr. Saad, if
• 51:23
  Speaker 4: you push him, he says, I'm not saying this. He says,
• 51:26
  Speaker 4: I agree that socialism is bad, but the only way
• 51:28
  Speaker 4: he would do this is in pragmatic reasons. What do
• 51:32
  Speaker 4: I mean pragmatic reasons? I mean, did you get to
• 51:35
  Speaker 4: the point where he, that hilarious chapter on taxes, on taxation?
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: No, I didn't get to taxes.
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: Oh my God.
• 51:41
  Speaker 4: It's a chapter that begins with a Rothbard quote.
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 51:44
  Speaker 4: The whole chapter is basically taxation is theft. And you're
• 51:48
  Speaker 4: about to punch in the air. And then you realize,
• 51:50
  Speaker 4: wait a minute, what is he saying? So he's saying
• 51:51
  Speaker 4: that he's being taxed too much from Canada. And you know,
• 51:54
  Speaker 4: I agree on everything he says. But then at some
• 51:57
  Speaker 4: point he says, look, I understand why a hedge fund
• 52:02
  Speaker 4: manager is You can take his stuff, but why take
• 52:05
  Speaker 4: the stuff of a, of a writer?
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: It's like, you're taking away my life.
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: Hedge fund, hedge fund guys. I, I've got a sub
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: stack I published today. What's the title of it? I
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: don't know if you've seen this.
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: Is this you or you are on AI?
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's all you on AI.
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: It's you on AI.
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: Oh yes, I saw it. I saw it.
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 52:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: Sub stack today. Uh, what was the title? It was, um, God,
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: it was something on Shylock.
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: Um, Yes, yes.
• 52:35
  Speaker 4: Someone can put it on the chat, but don't leave
• 52:40
  Speaker 4: the stream to watch it.
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: Now you're going to kill the algorithm.
• 52:46
  Speaker 4: So he literally says this, that if you take away
• 52:51
  Speaker 4: my money, it's like you're taking away my time and
• 52:53
  Speaker 4: my life.
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: But with a head manager, it's okay.
• 52:56
  Speaker 4: And then he says, There should be a limit on
• 52:59
  Speaker 4: how much the state should take from you. But there
• 53:03
  Speaker 4: is a limit. They're not taking 100%. So he thinks
• 53:06
  Speaker 4: 50% is too much. Okay, why is 50% too much?
• 53:10
  Speaker 4: But then 24% is not too much. You see, again,
• 53:14
  Speaker 4: it's this pragmatism. Like, let's negotiate some common sense agreement.
• 53:19
  Speaker 4: But how can you negotiate some common sense? If the
• 53:21
  Speaker 4: state has a right to take 1% of your stuff,
• 53:24
  Speaker 4: it can take 50% of your stuff.
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: And the fact that you're a writer, tough luck.
• 53:30
  Speaker 4: So again, it's this, I'm going to throw something and
• 53:33
  Speaker 4: hope it will stick, but I will not bother with
• 53:36
  Speaker 4: principles because this is abstract stuff. This is not hard
• 53:40
  Speaker 4: science like evolutionary psychology or common sense.
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so the article is called... Every generation has a Shylock.
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: And I just published it on Substack. It's a theme
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: that I've been writing about for the last 25 years.
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: And yes, I mean, the fact that he would say, yeah,
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: it's okay to go after the hedge fund guy is
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: such a classic. It's such, you know, and I can't
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: have any respect for people who think that way.
• 54:12
  Speaker 3: I mean, and he's a business school professor, right?
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: So at the very least, know that you're ignorant about finance.
• 54:17
  Speaker 3: And don't go there.
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: But to, you know, this bias of, yeah, let's go
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: over the finance here and that'll give me more red
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: meat because I know my audience, my audience hates finances. So, yeah.
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: Not good, guys.
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: All right. Yeah.
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: One more, one more thing.
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: Okay, good.
• 54:41
  Speaker 4: There was so many cliches in the book that at
• 54:43
  Speaker 4: some point I was telling myself, You know, the only
• 54:47
  Speaker 4: cliche that I haven't seen yet is this quote by
• 54:50
  Speaker 4: Thomas Sowell that I hate so much, speaking of pragmatism.
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: There are no solutions, only trade-offs. I hate, hate, hate
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: this quote.
• 54:59
  Speaker 4: And I was walking, I was listening inaudible, and he
• 55:03
  Speaker 4: uses this quote. And I actually started shouting to myself,
• 55:07
  Speaker 4: he said it, he said it, I knew it would come. Anyway,
• 55:11
  Speaker 4: then comes the chapter on socialism. Again, I'm thinking to myself,
• 55:16
  Speaker 4: The only cliche missing from this book is the other
• 55:19
  Speaker 4: cliche I hate so much, allegedly by Churchill. If you
• 55:24
  Speaker 4: are a young person and you're not a socialist, you
• 55:28
  Speaker 4: have no heart. If you are an older person and
• 55:31
  Speaker 4: you're not a capitalist, you have no mind.
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: And this is from two people who were socialists when
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: they were young. Go ahead.
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 55:40
  Speaker 4: And of course he says it and he builds a
• 55:42
  Speaker 4: whole section on this because he explains how for evolutionary reasons, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 55:48
  Speaker 4: So after reading the first chapters, if you spend some
• 55:53
  Speaker 4: time around on Twitter, on the concerto this year, you
• 55:57
  Speaker 4: could literally predict not just what comes next. You could
• 56:00
  Speaker 4: predict the titles and you could predict the case studies.
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: Yep. Yeah, so bottom line is I wouldn't recommend this book.
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: I don't think it's worth reading unless you just want
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: red meat. But to me, it made me more angry
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: than anything else and just seemed like a waste of time.
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: I learned nothing. You know, all the concretes and the
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: examples he used, I either knew them or knew something similar.
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: It didn't really. And, you know, he takes positions that
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: I find despicable, the position of immigration, for example. And
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: never really delves into anything interesting, anything where you might
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: learn something, where he's unpeeling something, where he's revealing something new.
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: So thumbs down, unfortunately, for this book.
• 56:54
  Speaker 4: Sal, we try to give our own framework of the
• 56:57
  Speaker 4: phenomena he's trying to explain. Let me do it in
• 57:02
  Speaker 4: short title, and then you can tell me if you
• 57:04
  Speaker 4: agree and you can elaborate. So the first key ingredient
• 57:07
  Speaker 4: here to explain these things obviously is altruism, or I
• 57:12
  Speaker 4: know this is a hard pill to swallow, let's call
• 57:14
  Speaker 4: it the command to self-sacrifice for the benefits of others.
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: This is such a big....
• 57:22
  Speaker 4: Such a big force in our culture, in the culture
• 57:25
  Speaker 4: of the West for the last many centuries, that it
• 57:27
  Speaker 4: has to be your starting point. Altruism explains why everyone
• 57:31
  Speaker 4: gives you the thumbs up and you have the boost
• 57:35
  Speaker 4: of your social circle if you show these self-sacrificial behaviors
• 57:40
  Speaker 4: such as, yeah, we know I pay so much taxes,
• 57:43
  Speaker 4: but take more of my money to send to the
• 57:46
  Speaker 4: third world. So altruism commands you to sacrifice. But now
• 57:50
  Speaker 4: the question becomes, to whom? Here comes the second element,
• 57:54
  Speaker 4: which is tribalism. Tribalism meaning we see the world in
• 57:59
  Speaker 4: terms of groups. So the one group, turning back to altruism,
• 58:03
  Speaker 4: the powerful group needs to sacrifice to the less powerful group.
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: Because you can have altruism without tribalism.
• 58:10
  Speaker 4: You can say Yaron sacrifices for Nikos.
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: But with tribalism, it's more... It's at a different level.
• 58:16
  Speaker 4: It's the white, powerful, rich male sacrifice for the other group.
• 58:23
  Speaker 4: And the third element that explains the things that Dr.
• 58:26
  Speaker 4: Saad discusses is non-judgmentalism. This giving up of the idea
• 58:32
  Speaker 4: that there is objective reason and objective morality, and therefore,
• 58:37
  Speaker 4: oh yeah, we see this person has committed a crime.
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: 50 different times, who am I to judge?
• 58:44
  Speaker 4: Or this religion tells us we want to kill you,
• 58:48
  Speaker 4: who are we to comment on that?
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: Now, the third thing, the non-judgmentalism, he would agree on that.
• 58:57
  Speaker 4: Of course, he wouldn't explain us how can we judge
• 59:00
  Speaker 4: if reason is not in our conscious choice. But I
• 59:04
  Speaker 4: think the other two, altruism and tribalism, are the two
• 59:07
  Speaker 4: elephants in the room that he he doesn't want to
• 59:11
  Speaker 4: address in the book, but can give us a better
• 59:13
  Speaker 4: framework to understand all these phenomena that he's trying to explain.
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, I think you're right at
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: the core of it is altruism at the core of
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: it is this idea that my life doesn't matter, which
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: has profound impact, right? It, it, It makes it impossible
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: for you to have self-esteem. So it makes it impossible
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: for you to defend yourself. So self-defense, which you need
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: against the enemy, disappears when your life is not what
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: matters because your life is only self. a value to
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: be sacrificed to somebody else. Other people's lives are what's important.
• 59:50
  Speaker 2: Yours is not. So, you know, I think it starts
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: with that. It starts with altruism. And you can take
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: altruism in lots of different directions. One certainly is my
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: tribe versus other tribes. We sacrifice within the tribe, but
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: we don't sacrifice outside of the tribe because the tribe
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: is is what's meaningful. We sacrifice to this God, but
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 2: not to that God.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 3: If it's religion.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: We still have a duty to sacrifice, but then we
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: have to view everything in terms of the tribe. And
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: so we could view it in terms of my tribe
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: feels guilty for oppressing that other tribe. and therefore we
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: sacrifice to the other tribe. Or we could view it as, no, no,
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: that other tribe is a threat. It's okay not to
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 2: be altruistic to them. It's okay to crush them, indeed,
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: to force them to sacrifice to us, because it's our
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: tribe that should be the focal of sacrifice.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 3: It's like, we should.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: All be sacrificing to God. Those people are not sacrificing
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: to the right God, so we need to crush them
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: or teach them to sacrifice to the right God, right?
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: So it's okay to be violent towards others, and this is,
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: of course... I think the altruism as it manifests in
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: the tribalism of the right, it's okay to sacrifice others
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: for us, right? But it's all altruism. It's all generated
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: by altruism. Also, virtue signaling, there's another element of virtue
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 2: signaling that I like to emphasize. That's right. I mean,
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: you let people know that you're a good altruist and
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: they give you a thumbs up. But one of the
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: things that you're doing also is letting yourself know you're
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: a good altruist.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 3: So a lot of people... I used to think this
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 3: of Bill Gates.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: I think he's become so rotten that it's hard to
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: untangle him, but this is what happens when you hold
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 2: bad premises and you live by them. But I think
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: in the old days, I think Bill Gates wasn't an altruist.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: Who believed he should be? Because altruism was moral. So
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: while he never felt guilt, he thought he should feel guilt.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: So he acted. So the virtue signaling was not to others.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: The virtue signaling was to himself. The virtue signaling was saying,
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: all right, Bill, I did something good. See, I'm a
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: good person. Even though I don't feel the guilt I'm
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: supposed to, I'm a good person. And I think a
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: lot of people, particularly successful people, particularly secular people, don't
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 2: actually feel the guilt and it bothers them. They think,
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: maybe I'm a psychopath, maybe there's something wrong with me.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: So the virtue signaling, they have to convince themselves of
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: their own goodness as a consequence. So virtue signaling is
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: multifaceted in that sense. And then the other element that
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: I think we need to add to this, which I
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: think God's side unfortunately fuels, is determinism.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: One of the.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 3: Reasons that you know, oh, he's.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: Committed another crime and another crime and another crime, we
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: let him go every time, is because, you know, it's
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 2: not really his fault. It's how he was raised. And
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: he got, you know, he lost in the lottery, in
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: the genetic lottery.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 4: And he's criticizing this. He says you should not believe
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 4: this BS. He says all this is BS.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 2: But he says we're determined by genes. What if you,
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: what if criminality is in our genes? You know, then
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: he says you still lock him up to protect society.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: But it's not his fault. So determinism of the environmental
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: kind or the biological kind lead us towards not judging, right?
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 3: You talked about not judging before, which I think is really,
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 3: really important.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: One of the reasons we don't judge is because, well,
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: if people don't have choices, what is it exactly that
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: we're judging?
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: I couldn't help it.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. And they couldn't help it if we have
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 2: no free will. So we live in a world very
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 2: much dominated by kind of a determinist view. I mean,
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: and then there's so many bad ideas out there that
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 2: come from Christianity, almost all of them, that, you know,
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 2: encourage the kind of crazy behavior he describes in the book. So,
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 2: for example, we've talked about this before, you know, Man
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 2: has fallen, right? So we're all guilty. There's something bad
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 2: about all of us. And indeed, the more civilized we become,
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 2: the more we build institutions and develop civilization, the more
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: corrupt we really are. I mean, this is Rousseau. And
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: if only we could go back to the Garden of
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 2: Eden or the state of nature where we're truly innocent
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 2: and where we're truly good. Of course, we're not human exactly.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 2: We're deterministic animals. So that's an interesting path to follow
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 2: in terms of linking Rousseau to the defund the police
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 2: and the, if only we got rid of all the institutions,
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 2: then there'd be peace on earth. Police cause crime. That's
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 2: straight up Rousseau. That's not, it's not suicidal empathy. That's,
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 2: that's a philosophical view about the nature of man and
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 2: the nature of crime. And yet.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: You know what's very crazy here?
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 4: God said, kind of get there from a completely different route.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: So he said, I think it was in a podcast
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: or in the book. Now I can't remember. It doesn't matter.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 4: One of the reasons why he appreciates so much Thomas Sowell,
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 4: he says, is because Thomas Sowell taught us that because
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 4: we're so imperfect, because we are, after all, fallen, we
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 4: need a society that is built on the premise that
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 4: we are imperfect. how to put it, fallen, imperfect. So again, ideally,
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 4: it would be something else, some form of communism perhaps.
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 4: But because we are the way we are, that's why
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 4: we need to avoid central planning. That's why we need
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 4: the institutions and the check on balances and the individual rights,
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 4: because we are imperfect. And this is why there are
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 4: no solutions. There are only trade-offs. How a giant like
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 4: soil could come up with this uninspiring and it's a known.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: Goal actually it's a known goal.
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 2: But that it's it's it's it's not original to soul
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 2: of course this is a long long long long held
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 2: belief among conservatives it actually they attribute it to the
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 2: founding fathers it's certainly in book and in in some
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 2: of the other origins of conservatism um ein man criticizes
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 2: this idea Don and I, you know, you know, free
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 2: market revolution talk about the defense of capitalism from the
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 2: perspective of human depravity. And that's exactly this, you know,
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 2: this this argument. Right. You know, if we were angels, then, yeah,
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 2: we could all be we could all be live happily
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 2: ever after under statism. It's the fact that we're not
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 2: we can't trust those politicians anymore. Politicians are even worse
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 2: than businessmen. You think businessmen are corrupt. Politicians are even
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 2: more corrupt. Just look at Trump. So we need to
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 2: reduce the power politicians have because they're so corrupt, right?
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 4: Well, it's a section of the book called With Friends
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 4: Like These.
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 2: Yes, exactly. So, yeah, so these are, these are, these
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 2: ideas that are embedded in the conservative movement. It's why
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 2: Logics and Ayn Rand repudiated the conservative movement. I, said
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 2: she was not a conservative, moved away from conservatism. So,
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 2: you know, because of this.
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 4: So here's how we can proceed not to break the rhythm.
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 4: How about we address first questions, if there are any,
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 4: on the book. Then we do our reviews that we've
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 4: promised to the people who have paid for them. And
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 4: then we go to the rest of the questions.
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: I'm right back. I can still hear you. I'm just refueling.
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 2: All right, let's see. Let me see if I can
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 2: see any questions relating to the book. All right. All right,
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 2: there are a few. So we can start.
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 3: With Andrew.
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 2: Andrew says, Mamdani's October 7th statement was a scary example
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: of a deranged empathy response. Really? His commiseration with Israelis,
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 2: it was a performative fig leaf, you know, tossed in
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 2: behind gritted teeth. For the Palestinians, his heart poured open
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 2: with grief.
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 4: That's a very good, actually, it gives us a very
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 4: good opportunity.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: I forgot to mention it. We are paying so much.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 4: We're cutting so much slack to these people when we
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 4: call them empathetic. Yeah. have zero empathy. They've watched the
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 4: live footage of October 7. It can't be that they
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 4: haven't seen the scene. Even if you live on Mars,
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 4: you must have seen the scene of Noah trying to
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 4: reach her boyfriend while she was abducted. These people watched
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 4: this and they had absolutely zero empathy. On the contrary,
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 4: they saw the scene with Noah reaching and they felt
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 4: closer to the kidnappers. So I don't even want to
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 4: call them that they have too much empathy. They're pieces of.
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 4: They are horrible and immoral. We shouldn't call them empathetic.
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 4: So I don't even agree that Mamdani showed all these
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 4: people so suicidal empathy.
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: No, they have blackness in their soul.
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 2: This is nihilism. And what Mamdani is doing is nihilism.
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 2: There's no empathy. And it's not even empathy towards the Palestinians.
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 2: If he was really empathetic towards Palestinians, he would be pro-Israel.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 3: There's no empathy towards anybody here. What there is.
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 2: Is a rejoicing in the opportunity to slam Israel, to
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 2: criticize Israel, to attack the good for being the good,
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 2: to hate the good for being the good. That's what
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 2: completely motivates this. That's what drives it. It's hatred. It's
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 2: all darkness. It's hatred and envy and nihilism. derived from altruism.
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 2: That's what this is all about. So I agree completely
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 2: with Nikos. It's not suicidal empathy. To the extent that
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 2: empathy is something good, the ability, it's a good ability,
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 2: the ability to put yourself in somebody else's shoes, to
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 2: the extent that's a good thing, then it's a good thing.
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 2: And there's no suicidal. And these people are not, oh,
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 2: I really care for these people. So take the left.
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 2: Did the left really care about Muslims?
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: No.
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 2: They hate their own civilization. They hate themselves. Much of
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 2: this is driven by self-hatred, which, by the way, altruism inculcates.
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 2: It's driven by self-hatred. It's not that they love the Muslims.
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 2: It's that they hate themselves. And therefore, they know exactly
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 2: what's going to happen, and they bring them in, and
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 2: then the consequences, and then they're willing to accept the
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 2: consequences out of complete self-hatred and willingness to live in
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 2: a nihilistic world. So, yeah, it's again, it's taking a
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 2: positive empathy and turning it into a negative when it's
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 2: completely unjustified.
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 4: And let the record show, I care about the Palestinians
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 4: more than Mamdani, his wife, and every person who voted
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 4: him for his free Palestine staff. Because I don't want
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 4: these Palestinians to live under Hamas.
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: I want them to have a good life. So spare
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: me that this guy has any.
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 2: More than that, you care more about the Palestinians than
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 2: the Palestinians do.
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 3: Which is true.
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 2: I get what you're saying. Because you understand what their
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 2: lives actually require, where so many of them tragically, sadly
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 2: and tragically, have bought into an ideology of death. You
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 2: want life for them because they're human beings and you
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 2: value human life. So you care more about the Palestinians
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 2: than the Palestinians do. I know a lot of Palestinians
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 2: and have known Palestinians in the past. And some of
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 2: them care about their lives and many of them have
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 2: been brainwashed into... Throwing their lives away.
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 4: Another thing which I'm really looking forward to talk about, Fauda,
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 4: how it captures the different types of Palestinians you meet.
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 4: And it does it in a way which is very perceptive.
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: Next week is going to be an interesting episode.
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I actually had an Israeli Arab tell
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 2: me once, you know, I bless Allah every day that
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 2: I was born in Israel. He says, I visited my
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 2: relatives in Jordan and in Egypt. Life is so much
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 2: better here.
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: Now, this is a long time ago. Jordan is a
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: good case. Imagine being in Gaza.
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, in comparison, yes. All right, let's see. Lucinda says, oh,
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 2: this is a continuation, I guess. Because emotions motivate actions.
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 2: People who don't understand reason... power reasons power over emotion
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 2: take the understanding of contradicting emotional states achieved through empathy
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 2: as evidence of plurality justifiable.
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 4: Okay you need to put commas i was reading feuerbach
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 4: this morning and this reminds me of the long paragraphs
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 4: she is.
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 2: She is german but she's super intelligent and and so
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 2: it does sound like a german sentence but All right,
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 2: I'm going to try to put commas the way I
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 2: think they are. Because emotions motivate actions, people who don't
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 2: understand reason's power over emotions take the understanding of contradicting
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 2: emotional states achieved through empathy as evidence for plurality, justifiable,
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 2: contradicting actions. All right, I still don't understand what you mean. Lucinda,
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 2: I'm sure what you're saying is right, but I just,
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 2: the sentence is too convoluted.
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 4: It's probably our friend means that this, because these theories
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 4: don't have a framework of that. We're motivated. What motivates
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 4: us to act? They find the, well, they don't have
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 4: a theory of emotion that are outside of our conscious control.
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 2: They don't have emotion. They don't see emotions or emotions
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 2: are dictated by our genes. They're not dictated by ideas.
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 2: which could cause all kind of things. I mean, I
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 2: think Lucinda will explain herself in a minute. She usually does.
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 4: Speaking about empathy, your last episodes, there's some problems with
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 4: the time stamping.
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: You can see the time stamping. But anyway, did you comment.
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 4: On the public execution that Trump.
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: Wants to do?
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 3: Well, it's already done.
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 2: It's already happened. No, I didn't. I should have, but
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 2: I didn't.
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: What do you mean it's already done?
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 2: I think they did. I think I read somewhere that
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 2: it's already been executed.
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 4: Then how would it be live streamed if it has
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 4: already happened?
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 2: No, it was yesterday. I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong.
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 3: That anyway.
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 4: So but I mean, there is even a way. First
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 4: of all, I think that for me, it's such a
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 4: red flag. Anyone who thinks this is a good idea.
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree.
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 4: But it's interesting how empathy plays there. I don't know
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 4: if empathy is the right word for very selfish reasons.
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 4: I don't want to see that in the same way
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 4: that people would say, oh, that we should have public
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 4: executions where they should die slowly. I don't want to
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 4: see this for very personal, selfish reasons. It has nothing
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 4: to do with justice or whatever. If there was a
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 4: very wise philosopher, you know him very well, but I
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 4: don't know if he, because it was a private discussion,
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 4: I asked him, is torture okay? I mean, no, that's
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 4: a horrible way to put it. Would torture be justified
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 4: in a critical situation? And he said, yes, it would
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 4: be justified in a critical situation, but you should find
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 4: someone who would not enjoy it. Because if someone enjoys it,
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 4: there's something so, so, so wrong with them. And I
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 4: totally agree. And the same applies with the people who
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 4: would watch a live execution and they'd be like, okay,
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 4: let's tune in.
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 4: These people, if these people are my neighbors, I would
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 4: say I'm sleeping with a gun under my pillow. It's
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 4: not allowed in Greece. I'm sleeping with my tomahawk very
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 4: close to my bed.
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I agree completely. Torture is definitely acceptable, but
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 2: it should never be pursued for the sake of the torture.
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 2: It should only be pursued for the sake of whatever
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 2: kind of outcome you're trying to achieve. All right, let's
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 2: see quickly. Lucinda does say, and again with no commas,
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 2: Commas take up space from the Super Chat messages, so
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 2: I can't use them because otherwise the message won't fit.
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 2: Might comment clarification on the live stream once it's finished
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 2: to clarify. All right, that final sentence, again, doesn't make
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 2: any sense. But I don't know what's going on today, Lucinda.
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 2: But yes, I understand. Have it spill over. You're spending
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 2: a lot of money clarifying previous unclarity. So just do
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 2: part one, part two, part three, and then put it
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 2: in the commas and break up the sentences. That sentence
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 2: was also too long. So it doesn't need just commas.
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 2: It needs punctuation marks and shorter sentences.
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: I am not....
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 2: I'm not a Kant scholar. I can't read Kant. I've
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 2: tried reading Kant many times. I can't do it. It's impossible.
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 2: So anything I say about Kant is all second-handed because
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 2: I read commentaries on him. I can't read him. I
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 2: don't have the kind of mental capacities to be able
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 2: to do it. All right, Richard. Suicide and empathy creates confusion.
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 2: Conflating suicide with empathy. Had the book been titled Fatal Self-Destruction,
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 2: With the content you just described, I would be, I
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 2: would have plunged me have plunged me into deep disappointment. See,
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 2: I don't understand that either.
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: Well, it would be a different book, completely different book.
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 2: Fatal Self-Destruction. Yeah, I mean, yes, I think it's a
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 2: bad name. Because I think, again, you're taking something good, empathy,
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 2: and it's good to explain how something good could be misused,
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 2: but you're building a whole theory about its misuse and
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 2: overemphasizing that aspect of it. It's just wrong. All right,
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 2: let's see.
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 4: Speaking about books on altruism with better titles and obviously
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 4: better philosophy, I found the tyranny of need interesting.
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: Was a good title. And also, obviously, it was a
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: good book.
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 4: But I found it quite catchy and successful as a title.
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 2: Yes, that's an excellent title. I think it was a
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 2: changed title. The original title was about selfishness.
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I've got the latest.
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 2: And this is a much, much better title by Peter Schwartz. Yeah.
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 2: All right. Andrew says, happy to see you on giving
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 2: Nikos a week's reprieve from deep reading on deranged dictators
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 2: and mass murderers.
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 4: I enjoyed the, I enjoy the readings on wars and
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 4: deranged dictators way more than I enjoyed this week.
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 2: There you go. Right. Uh, we did that. We're being
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 2: asked a lot about, Oh, he means probably he means Fauda.
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 3: No, I think he.
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 2: Means Mao and those guys. Um, Let's see anything else related.
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 2: Lucinda says, I tried installing Twitter. I made it like
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 2: three days before I had enough and uninstalled it.
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 3: Completely understand.
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 4: Well, install it again and follow just me and Yaron.
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 2: There you go.
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: And amplify our voices.
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 2: Mary Alene says, I checked out the book and saw
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 2: Saad's views on immigration in the reviews.
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 3: I knew then I wouldn't be reading the book.
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's how he even discusses immigration that I found
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 2: so despicable, so bad.
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 4: So let me give an example, because you spoke about collectivism.
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 4: At some point he spoke about deportation and he said, look,
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 4: when you deport people, you will make also mistakes. But
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 4: that's OK, because you're going to save many people. Now,
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 4: you could have a very good argument for deportations. You
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 4: could have an excellent argument for mass deportations, maybe. But
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 4: you cannot, I would never accept this. Yeah, you know,
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 4: there's going to be some mistakes. You should be, because
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 4: this is a very important topic, you have to do
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 4: everything that you can to make sure that there are
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 4: no such mistakes. Rather than using the utilitarian, yeah, you're
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 4: going to protect people by, you know, you kick out 10,000 people. Yeah,
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 4: maybe some innocent ones are going to end up in
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 4: a self-salvador hellhole.
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: But what can you do?
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 2: It's... It's exactly the opposite of the whole basis of
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 2: our legal system. The whole basis of our legal system
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 2: is innocent until proven guilty. We don't want to make mistakes.
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 2: We're going to give you appeals and we're going to,
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 2: you know, lots of ways in which to try to prove,
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 2: to show that the state got it wrong. And here
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 2: we're exactly the opposite. Okay, let's do this quickly because
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 2: we still got to review two TV shows. You know,
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 2: Lucinda says, the way I define empathy in my own
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 2: thinking is the capacity to understand emotional states.
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 3: Separate from one's own.
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that's a good definition.
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 4: That's how I think God describes it in a good day,
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 4: when he decides to give a definition.
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 2: It's the capacity to understand emotional states separate from one's own.
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: I think that's right.
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 2: I don't know if it, yeah. Let's see. All right.
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: Interestingly, it's a.
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 4: Greek word, which in Greece, in Greek means something completely different.
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 4: It's a Greek word that doesn't exist in Greek.
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 2: Okay. We'll get to that. Okay. The same capacity that
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 2: makes empathy possible towards others also makes understanding of emotional
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 2: states towards one's past self possible. That's interesting. I think
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 2: that's probably right. So again, as you described it, it's
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 2: a understanding emotional states that are not, you're not experiencing
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 2: right now. All right. And then she goes on, although
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 2: empathy towards one's past self is also aid by memory. Yes.
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 2: And by the fact that you experienced it, so you
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 2: know what it felt like. That capacity is not limitless. However,
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 2: and one can create a false emotional images of oneself
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 2: or others. Yes, one can create false and one has
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 2: to be very careful. And that's why it's legitimate to
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 2: talk about misapplications of empathy where empathy is not appropriate.
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 2: But again, that would be a different book. And then
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 2: she says, I'm saying that I might post a clarifying
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 2: comment on the YouTube video once the show's over.
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 4: I read all the comments. I, for a whole week,
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 4: I go back every day and check your comments. So
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 4: you should, if you want any clarification, feel free to write,
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 4: to write comments.
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 2: So I think that's all the empathy questions we have.
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 2: So let's shift to a discussion of the two TV shows,
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 2: the Chazbot.
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 3: I don't know if he's here.
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 2: I hope he's here. The Chasbot paid us to review.
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 3: So what do you want to start with?
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 4: We have to start from Yes Minister because it's the
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 4: superior show. So the context here is this is a
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 4: TV series set in the late 70s, early 80s Great Britain.
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: We have a new government.
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 4: It's unspecified which party it is, whether it's the Labour
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 4: or the Conservative Party. And we have one guy who
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 4: is a very common sense person who is the minister.
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 4: And we have a bit more Machiavellian, a bit more
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 4: cynical in the political game guy who is his counselor,
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 4: who is his advisor. And this is the premise on
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 4: which the show is built. And we're going to comment
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 4: on the first episode of the second season, which is
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 4: called The Compassionate Society or something like that. And here's
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 4: the story. There is a hospital... which runs, everything is perfect.
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 4: It has something like a hundred.
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 2: 500, 500 people working there, 500.
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 4: People working there. There's only one problem. There is not
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 4: a single doctor, not a single nurse and not a
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 4: single patient. So everyone who works in that hospital is
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 4: an administrator. They actually work, they do something. And at
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 4: some point the press is about to learn about that.
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 4: And now the, the counselor and the minister have to
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 4: figure out what to do with this hospital which has
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 4: 500 people working there none of which is a doctor
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 4: or a nurse.
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah and the argument is that they can't have patients
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 2: because they can't.
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 3: Afford the doctors and nurses.
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 2: So and in the meantime in other because it's socialized
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 2: medicine and right now they're closing hospital wards in other
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 2: hospitals they're closing them down so they can't They can't
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 2: open this one because there's no money because, you know,
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 2: they're actually shutting everything else down. But there is enough,
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 2: there is money to pay the administrators. And by the way,
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 2: this reminds me of our universities, which have over the
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 2: last few years been hiring dozens and dozens, well, no,
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 2: hundreds and hundreds of administrators, no more students, no additional professors.
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 2: But like administration has gone a 5x or something, if
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 2: you look at the graphs of all this. What for?
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 2: Because administrators create work for administrators, and therefore you need
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 2: more administrators to administrate the administrators.
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 3: And there's no end to it.
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 4: And there's some hilarious dialogue there that the minister says, wait,
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 4: I thought we spent money to make sick people better.
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 4: And the counselor says, no, we spent money to make
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 4: everyone better off, including the administrator.
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: What are we going to do with the administrator?
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 3: We can't fire these administrators.
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 2: They won't have a job.
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 4: They won't have a job. And remember, this is... the
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 4: early 80s, late 70s Britain, the unions are very strong.
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 4: So when the administration here that... So the minister says,
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 4: the obvious thing we're going to do, we're going to
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 4: fire 200 administrators and hire doctors. Then the administrators go
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 4: on strike. And they, obviously, they cause problems that you're.
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 4: In other hospitals that actually have patients, there the doctors
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 4: also go on strike. And you find this very weird
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 4: situation where they say, well, we do this to protect everyone. Obviously,
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 4: they have, quote, selfish reasons, but you cannot say this.
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: So the same problems.
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 4: That are caricatured in a 1980s TV series about Britain,
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 4: you can still find the same problems today in the
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 4: NHS and in every bureaucratic system. And there's this other
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 4: brilliant dialogue, this brilliant line, that.
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 1: The minister says, these people are not doing anything.
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 4: And the counselor says but why are you saying this
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 4: because he said the minister says there are no results
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 4: but the counselor says but what matters is not results
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 4: what matters is activity there is activity and this is
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 4: the essence if you think about it of a socialist
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 4: economy people are doing stuff now it doesn't matter what
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 4: type of stuff they do but they do stuff. There
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 4: is activity. This is the same thing in many bureaucratic institutions. Seemingly,
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 4: people work.
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 1: What are they producing? God knows, but they do work.
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I have to say, I think Yes Minister,
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 2: the three seasons of Yes Minister are the best political
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 2: satire ever. I think the show is brilliant. Just to elaborate,
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 2: this counselor is not just a counselor. He's a member
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 2: of the civil service. So he is always there, right?
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 2: No matter which political party wins or loses, the minister
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 2: changes all the time, but the civil servant is always there.
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 2: And his only motivation throughout the show is to protect
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 2: the civil servant, the civil service. And he, of course,
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 2: is like five times smarter than any politician. And he
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 2: knows what he wants. The politicians always swayed by voters
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 2: and trying to appease people. The civil servants guy knows
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 2: exactly what he wants. And he's constantly manipulating things in
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 2: the background. So, for example, here he doesn't want the
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 2: hospital closed. So he actually gets the unions to go
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 2: on strike because the union guy says he goes to
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 2: the union guy says we're going to close the hospital.
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 2: And the union guy says, yeah, it kind of makes sense.
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 2: There are no patients there. And he says, what do
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 2: you mean? And, you know, he convinces the union guys that.
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 2: You know, they should protest this. You know, the union
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 2: guys have more common sense, are much more aligned with
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 2: the minister than he is. But at the end, and
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 2: what it shows is that at least in England, and
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 2: I think this is true generally, the people who run
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 2: the world are not the politicians. The people who run
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 2: the world are the civil servants. And they have their
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 2: own agenda and their own set of motivations and their
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 2: own set of incentives.
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 3: And they run things and it's every episode.
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 2: I mean, they're not all equally brilliant, but some of
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 2: them are just, they're all funny. And some of them
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 2: are just unbelievably, uh, brilliant. And of course the name
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 2: here is, uh, was it compassion, um, compassionate society the
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 2: compassionate society and they keep bringing up untrue compassionate society
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 2: and in the end there's a grand compromise where everybody
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 2: gets a little bit of what they what they want
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 2: but but no patients are treated in the hospital the
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 2: hospital beds are used for for cuban refugees.
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 4: That's the other thing that's how it fits perfectly with
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 4: today's show about the empathy So the UK has committed
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 4: to getting some Cuban refugees. By the way, these days,
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 4: no one would want to take in Cuban refugees. Trump
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 4: would find a way to send them back to Cuba,
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 4: as he allegedly wanted to do with Venezuelan refugees, but anyway.
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 4: So what they end up doing is they put in
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 4: the hospital Cuban refugees, and now everyone is happy.
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 2: And that solves the problem of money, because they don't
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 2: have to hire doctors and nurses, and they don't have
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 2: to find new housing for the refugees, because there's a
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 2: thousand refugees and a thousand beds in the hospital. And
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 2: everybody gets what they wanted, and everybody's happy at the end. And,
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 2: you know, this is a compassionate society. Everybody's happy.
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 4: And you know who works not just to work and
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 4: to do activities, but to actually deliver impact and results.
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: Yaron and Nico.
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 4: So let us encourage people not just to send their
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 4: super thanks here, but also to contribute to our different Patreons,
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 4: your Patreon, my Patreon. You have many different tiers with
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 4: different prices and different perks. I have basically one simple tier,
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 4: 7 euros per month. You get a deep dive every
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 4: month and then ask me anything every month.
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: So this is very important for us. So let us
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 1: encourage people to.
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 1: Go there and, uh, and support us.
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 3: Patreon.com.
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 2: Just put in, uh, you're on book show or Nikos
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 2: and you will find, uh, you will find our Patreon
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 2: pages and, uh, become monthly subscribers. And then you don't
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 2: have to think about it anymore, right?
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 3: You've done it.
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 2: It's monthly, it's automatic. And, and, uh, all that guilt
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 2: that you've been carrying around for weeks now, because you
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 2: haven't supported the show, you can alleviate with one action.
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 2: This is me being empathetic with your guilt and really
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 2: trying to help you relieve the guilt.
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 4: And one last thing about a yes minister. Now I'm
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 4: going to be like the return traditionalist guy. Just the
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 4: vibe of seeing this old England, the attire, the way
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 4: people dress, the way people carry themselves, the way they speak.
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 4: You know, they say the past is a foreign country.
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 4: This is really a foreign country and there's something very
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 4: sweet and nostalgic and beautiful and almost sad that something
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 4: is lost somewhere when you watch that show.
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 2: Just to contradict Nikos because it's fun. It's late 70s,
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 2: early 80s England. It was a terrible time. There's nothing
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 2: to be nostalgic about that period about maybe the way
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 2: they dress, maybe Although I'm so glad they don't dress
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 2: that way anymore.
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 4: What about the manner? The way they carry themselves? The British...
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 4: It's all fake.
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 2: They're socialists. They're poor. The economy's tumbling. I mean, maybe
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 2: this is under Thatcher. This is the beginning of the reversal.
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 2: But the beginning of the reversal is also the loosening
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 2: up of all that... What did they call it? You know,
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 2: have a thing up their ass? You know, a stick
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 2: up their ass? I mean....
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 2: I mean, British stiff upper lip. They had a British
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 2: stiff upper lip. I mean, I think it is the
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 2: greatest era, the 80s, the 70s and 80s, a great
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 2: era of British humor. But British humor that ranges from
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 2: Monty Python, which is about as nihilistic as it gets
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 2: in a sense. to, you know, Yes Minister, which is clever,
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 2: you know, little political satire. This is the era of
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 2: Blackadder and Fawlty Towers and just great, great British comedy.
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 2: That's the thing I miss most about that England. I
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 2: don't miss, I mean, I grew up in, I spent
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 2: two and a half years, as you'll find out from
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 2: my documentary, in.
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 1: London in the 1960s.
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 2: I hated it. When I traveled to England in the 80s,
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 2: I did not like it. And I love, you know,
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 2: I think London, at least, that's the part of England
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 2: I really know. London has become such a better place.
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 2: It's cleaner. It's cleaner. Oh, God. London has gone through
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 2: a massive transformation over the last 30 years.
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 3: It's so much cleaner than it used to be. I mean,
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 3: the buildings were filled with soot.
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 2: The place was filthy. People didn't care. They had no,
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 2: I mean, they had manners, but they were all superficial.
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 2: There was no benevolence. There was a lot of malevolence.
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 2: If you go back to the 70s. Oh, yeah. People
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 2: are so much more benevolent today than they were back
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 2: then in England.
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah, my point of reference is not the 70s. It's
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 4: really 2000s when I first moved there. There's no way
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 4: you can persuade me that London today is better than
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 4: it was in 2006 or the average person that you
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 4: go in a shop is more benevolent.
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 2: Today probably true so probably true the last 20 years
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 2: have probably not been the best but the period from
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 2: the mid 80s to 2006 that's when the good transformation
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 2: happened so you you probably came at peak london which
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 2: is mid 90s to mid you know probably to the
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 2: early teens and then it kind of deteriorates and that
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 2: yep you know and and and you can see that
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 2: in the politics and you can see that reflected in
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 2: pretty much everything else But no, it was, you know,
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 2: when you, have you ever seen Cockwood Orange?
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I hate it. Yeah.
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 2: So that, London had that feel.
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 4: Anyway, well, for me, London is always, you know, Sherlock Holmes,
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 4: Hercule Poirot. It's always the upper classes in their own
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 4: ecosystem looking.
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 1: Down on the rest of society.
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 4: But at least there was something noble in this British
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 4: sense that we are doing something important.
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 1: Life needs to be of some standard.
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 3: I love that TV show.
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 2: About the aristocrats and their big home and their servants.
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 1: Or the Something Abbey.
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Something Abbey.
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 2: Downton Abbey. I love Downton Abbey. Because of that benevolence
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 2: that they, that there was part of. But that's 19th
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 2: century England. At least there was some at least a
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 2: certain portion of the population had this joie de vivre,
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 2: I mean, a love of life and a real benevolence
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 2: around it. But it didn't survive World War II.
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 4: On a completely different note, the second thing we have
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 4: to review is an episode by a TV series.
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 1: I didn't even know existed, Rick and Morty. Yep.
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 4: It is a futuristic science fiction.
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 1: It's in cartoons.
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 4: And the premise there is there is a kid, a
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 4: nerdy kid, that is in a close relationship with a
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 4: grandfather who is like a mentor and he's a crazy scientist.
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 4: Something a bit like Back to the Future, something like that. Now,
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 4: this is what I found on Wikipedia because I've only
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 4: watched the first episode so that I would get what's
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 4: happening and the episode that our friend asked for.
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 1: The name of that episode is.
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 1: You have it because I sent it to you yesterday.
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 2: Something is crazy.
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 4: Anyway, we'll tell you which season it is. Anyway, the
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 4: premise here is the following one. This crazy scientist has
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 4: created the whole universe. So it's the theory of the
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 4: multiverse or something like that. So this crazy scientist has
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 4: created the universe so that the people who work in
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 4: that universe will provide enough energy for him to run,
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 4: I don't know, his electric car or his house. And
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 4: at some point, there's something wrong with the battery of
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 4: the house, so he dives into the inferior universe to
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 4: figure out what's happening there. Why are the slaves, practically,
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 4: but these people don't know they're slaves. It's like the Matrix.
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 4: Why they don't work hard? And he realizes that in
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 4: that universe, there is a clever guy who has created
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 4: an inferior universe within that universe where people, without realizing it,
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 4: work hard.
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 1: To provide him with energy. So every time they.
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 4: Jump in a deeper and deeper and deeper universe and
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 4: every time they go to that universe, the person in
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 4: that universe is shocked like oh my god i didn't
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 4: realize we are slaves actually how dare you have is
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 4: have us in slavery and the guys from the above
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 4: universe they say yeah come on what are you bleeding
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 4: hard liberal you're gonna get laid in college with these
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 4: views but this is stupid you know you're having a
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 4: good life.
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 2: Well but they say something more they say you're not
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 2: slaves because because you're dealing with one another voluntarily and
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 2: you you're paying one another So, you know, they're kind
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 2: of making fun of us because that's an argument against
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 2: the fact that capitalism is slavery. So, yeah. So, I mean,
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 2: there are two stories here. That's one story. And I'm
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 2: impressed by how well you explained it because I was
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 2: wondering how I was going to explain this multi-universe nonsense. Anyway,
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 2: so that's one story. And it's clearly... you know, kind
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 2: of making fun of capitalism and the capitalist idea that
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 2: the whole idea is that, you know, people who work
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 2: for you are really your slaves. And you say, no,
• 1:40:59
  Speaker 2: they're not my slaves. I'm giving them money. And that
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 2: somehow excuses the fact that they're producing stuff that you
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 2: benefit from freely. So there's a clearly Marxist attempt at
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 2: kind of a Marxism to driving this uh most of
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 2: it's pretty silly and uh i you know let me
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 2: just say i only watched one episode so i didn't
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 2: watch the first episode of series i didn't read about
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 2: it in wikipedia so i know nothing about it but
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 2: generally i hate the style of animation um this is
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 2: why i don't like the simpsons i don't like any
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 2: of uh you know there's a whole universe of shows
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 2: that have this type of animation i think started with
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 2: the simpsons i never liked any of those shows i
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 2: don't like the humor it's um You know, there's a
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 2: sense of nihilism to it, although some of it is clever.
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 2: And I'll get to what I– so some of this
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 2: is clever, right? So it's universe within a universe within
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 2: a universe. It's kind of clever. And to use that
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 2: as an attempt to criticize capitalism is kind of clever.
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 3: So I'll give them that.
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 2: But then I think the other part that's clever is
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 2: that when they dive into battery, they leave their car
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 2: in another universe, which has giant spiders and stuff. And
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 2: the car is run by an A.I., And so this
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 2: is a whole thing about AI and how AI could
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 2: eradicate humanity.
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 3: And they tell the AI, protect the girl.
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 2: So the car has the girls inside.
• 1:42:22
  Speaker 4: Someone stays in the car and they tell her, wait here,
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 4: we'll be back. And while she stays in there, imagine
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 4: telling your Tesla, I will leave my sister in the Tesla.
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 1: Tesla, protect my sister.
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 2: Protect my sister. So now the question is.
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 4: So what happens is if someone comes like a beggar
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 4: or something and the Tesla says, okay, I need to protect...
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 4: kills the first person completely destroys.
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah so then the goal is shocked by that so
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 2: she tells the car don't kill people so the next
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 2: guy who comes you know they they basically he shoots
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 2: him in a way that paralyzes the guy say see
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 2: he's lost stability to walk and this is all a
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 2: in a sense a kind of and then in the
• 1:43:01
  Speaker 2: end in order to avoid the army attacking the car
• 1:43:05
  Speaker 2: blowing it up It arranges for a peace deal between
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 2: the spiders and the army in exchange for leaving the
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 2: car alone. But the consequences of that are that now
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 2: all the food has to be food that both spiders
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 2: and human beings can eat. So the food becomes disgusting.
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 2: So the best ice cream in the universe now is tainted.
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 2: So there are negative consequences to anything the AI does.
• 1:43:31
  Speaker 4: There are flies on the ice cream so that the
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 4: ice cream can be enjoyed, egalitarianism, can be enjoyed both
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 4: by humans and by spiders. By the way, if you
• 1:43:40
  Speaker 4: are arachnophobic, don't worry. The spiders are cartoon soldiers, not
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 4: something super disgusting.
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 1: And it's such.
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 2: A clever critique of AI and of this idea that, no,
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 2: AI won't kill us all because, well, you know, it
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 2: can misinterpret. You know, this is the idea that you
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 2: tell the AIs to, I don't know, do something with paperclips. And,
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 2: you know, through a chain of reasoning, it comes to
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 2: the conclusion that the only way it can achieve the
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 2: mission of building these paperclips or whatever is to kill
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 2: all human beings because they're interrupting with its.
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 3: Ability to do that.
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 2: So it's like the unintended consequences of giving AI a command,
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 2: the show illustrates. So there's cleverness to it, I guess.
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 2: But this is the problem with all these shows. All
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 2: these shows are making a broad generalization, but I think
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 2: you'll know what I mean. There's no positive values. There's
• 1:44:35
  Speaker 2: zero positive. There's nothing that you can be for. There's
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 2: nothing that, you know, it's just cynicism and skepticism about everything.
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 1: Look, I share your.
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 4: taste i don't like simpsons i don't like family guy
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 4: yeah it's not that i've watched them but the only
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 4: cartoon that i've watched and very much enjoyed was archer
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 4: archer was something like a james bond type in cartoon
• 1:45:08
  Speaker 4: which i found absolutely hilarious now this was 15 years
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 4: ago i don't know if i would like it today
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 4: but yeah that's the only cartoon i've ever.
• 1:45:16
  Speaker 2: Enjoyed i like episodes of uh what do you call
• 1:45:21
  Speaker 2: it the one that's really funny what's that Archer. No,
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 2: I don't think I'd like Archer, but the only one
• 1:45:30
  Speaker 2: I liked is, but only episodes, because again, I think
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 2: it has the same nihilistic tendency, is, God, what do
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 2: you call that show? South Park.
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 1: Family Guy, American Dad.
• 1:45:43
  Speaker 2: South Park. There are episodes of South Park that are really, really,
• 1:45:48
  Speaker 2: really funny. I mean, where they criticize Mormonism, of course,
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 2: the Book of Mormon, The play, the Book of Mormon,
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 2: the musical, is one of the funniest things I've ever
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 2: seen in my entire life.
• 1:46:00
  Speaker 3: I was literally.
• 1:46:00
  Speaker 2: Rolling on the floor while these people were up on stage.
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 2: I thought it was hysterical. There's certain episodes of South Park,
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 2: like during the Danish cartoons, where the whole town buys
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 2: a bunch of sand and they put it in the
• 1:46:18
  Speaker 2: middle of the thing and everybody buries their head in
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 2: the sand. So things like that were just hysterical. Of course,
• 1:46:24
  Speaker 2: they also tried to show that I give them the
• 1:46:26
  Speaker 2: credit for wanting to show the cartoon of Muhammad and
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 2: Comedy Central not allowing them to do it, but they
• 1:46:32
  Speaker 2: actually had it prepped so the creators were willing to
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 2: do it. So I have enjoyed episodes of South Park.
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 2: I couldn't consume a diet of South Park. It's too cynical.
• 1:46:44
  Speaker 2: It's too anti-values.
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 4: There's something also with the memes, with the.
• 1:46:50
  Speaker 1: I can't relate to cartoons. I don't know why.
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 4: Particularly with cartoons that are not very anthropomorphic.
• 1:46:57
  Speaker 1: I can't connect.
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 2: All right, so should we go back to Super Chat?
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 1: We proceed to further questions.
• 1:47:06
  Speaker 4: Encourage people to request more reviews because, again, guys, I'm
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 4: stuck with a Disney Plus subscription, a Netflix subscription, and
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 4: I think these are things of the devil. Normally, I
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 4: don't subscribe to these things. Now that I have the subscription,
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 4: make it count.
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 2: He got to watch Fowler, though, because he has a
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 2: Netflix subscription.
• 1:47:26
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, that's true. Yeah, it's Fowler.
• 1:47:28
  Speaker 3: There's some value.
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 2: There's some value there. All right. Let's turn to questions.
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 2: And yes, we're happy to do movie reviews, TV reviews.
• 1:47:37
  Speaker 1: Song reviews.
• 1:47:37
  Speaker 4: For people who might, in the unlikely case they got interested,
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 4: the episode we reviewed by Rick and Morty is Season 2,
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 4: Episode 6, The Ricks Must Be Crazy. And many thanks
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 4: to the people who asked for this review and paid
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 4: us money for this.
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 2: That was also Shazba.
• 1:47:55
  Speaker 1: Thank you very much, Shazba.
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 2: All right. Moulton Splendor, $ 50. Thank you, Moulton Splendor. Really
• 1:48:01
  Speaker 2: appreciate it. California's Proposition 40 proposes an extra tax, extra
• 1:48:06
  Speaker 2: 5% tax on billionaires. Why hate billionaires? Have any of
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 2: the haters of billionaires ever named specific damage, hurts, or
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 2: loss caused by billionaires? Is it envy or oppressed, oppressor, fear? Well,
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 2: it's a little bit of all those, but let's think
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 2: about this in more straightforward kind of ways, right?
• 1:48:33
  Speaker 3: Billionaires have billions of dollars.
• 1:48:36
  Speaker 2: And I don't know, there's a bunch of underperforming schools
• 1:48:40
  Speaker 2: in San Francisco where the kids are not doing well
• 1:48:43
  Speaker 2: and the teachers are underpaid and the facilities are just
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 2: not up to par. And the billionaires have clearly excess money.
• 1:48:52
  Speaker 2: They don't really have anything to do with it. What
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 2: are they going to do with it? They hoard it.
• 1:48:56
  Speaker 3: They invest it, but the investments are just static.
• 1:48:59
  Speaker 2: Maybe they play around with it by pretending to go
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 2: to Mars and building rockets. But what's the real utility
• 1:49:05
  Speaker 2: of that versus... the poor kids in those schools. And look,
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 2: if we put a tax on poor people, how much
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 2: money can we raise from poor people? You can't raise
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 2: a lot of money from poor people. And middle class people,
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 2: you know, it's really difficult to live in California on
• 1:49:22
  Speaker 2: a middle class income. Billionaires have excess. They live well.
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 2: I mean, if I take 5% of what the billionaires have,
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 2: they'll still be billionaires. They'll still have more money than
• 1:49:35
  Speaker 2: anybody else has. They'll still be able to afford every
• 1:49:37
  Speaker 2: yacht in the world and every private airplane and five
• 1:49:41
  Speaker 2: different homes. So even if I don't hate them, right,
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 2: just straight math. Once I accept kind of a utilitarian,
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 2: collectivistic perspective, it just seems obvious that I should, you know,
• 1:49:59
  Speaker 2: I should tax them. That's where the money is. So
• 1:50:03
  Speaker 2: as soon as you accept redistribution of wealth as an
• 1:50:07
  Speaker 2: okay thing, as soon as you accept the altruistic premise
• 1:50:11
  Speaker 2: that we have to take care of the poor. And
• 1:50:14
  Speaker 2: by the way, one of the things about billionaires is,
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 2: and this convinces some billionaires, is they're not helping the poor.
• 1:50:22
  Speaker 2: They're not giving enough to charity. So I'm just helping
• 1:50:25
  Speaker 2: them out. I'm helping them be better altruists. So what
• 1:50:28
  Speaker 2: are they complaining about?
• 1:50:30
  Speaker 4: They are the perfect victims because no one is going
• 1:50:33
  Speaker 4: to stand up for them. And if you manage to
• 1:50:35
  Speaker 4: squeeze them, you're going to get a lot of stuff
• 1:50:38
  Speaker 4: from them. And even the better people out there are
• 1:50:42
  Speaker 4: going to throw them under the bus. There is a despicable,
• 1:50:46
  Speaker 4: horrible video by Sam Harris. You can find it as
• 1:50:49
  Speaker 4: a short. Something like, if you're a billionaire, you should
• 1:50:53
  Speaker 4: be ashamed of yourself for not giving too much.
• 1:50:56
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 1:50:57
  Speaker 4: Now, if the better people out there have this disgusting view, imagine.
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 1: What is the view of the average envious written leftist.
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 2: And this is altruism. To be a billionaire, you must
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 2: have been self-interested. To continue to be a billionaire, you
• 1:51:13
  Speaker 2: must continue to be self-interested enough to keep your billions.
• 1:51:18
  Speaker 2: Altruism demands you give the billions away. All we're doing...
• 1:51:23
  Speaker 2: is manifesting the morality.
• 1:51:26
  Speaker 1: Facilitating this altruism to happen.
• 1:51:29
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. So there's a sense in which there's a press
• 1:51:32
  Speaker 2: up there, but you don't have to go there. You
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 2: don't have to be that far left. This is why
• 1:51:37
  Speaker 2: it's actually popular right now, not just in California, but
• 1:51:40
  Speaker 2: in America more broadly. It's because you don't have to
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 2: be far left crazy to buy into this. All you
• 1:51:45
  Speaker 2: have to do is have enough of the altruistic premise
• 1:51:48
  Speaker 2: and you're there. And by the way, the right doesn't really,
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 2: I mean, the right is making a big deal out
• 1:51:56
  Speaker 2: of this for economic reasons. The billionaires will leave California.
• 1:51:59
  Speaker 2: But my guess is that down the road, somebody like
• 1:52:03
  Speaker 2: a J.D. Vance, if they ever get elected president, would
• 1:52:06
  Speaker 2: be happy to impose a wealth tax on billionaires if
• 1:52:09
  Speaker 2: it's on a national level and you can't leave America, right?
• 1:52:13
  Speaker 2: So you capture them. That's the thing about the U.S.
• 1:52:18
  Speaker 2: and England are different. You see, In Britain, if they
• 1:52:21
  Speaker 2: raise taxes on millionaires, all the millionaires leave, and we've
• 1:52:24
  Speaker 2: seen thousands of millionaires leave. But in America, you can't
• 1:52:27
  Speaker 2: leave because America taxes your worldwide income. So they'll tax
• 1:52:30
  Speaker 2: you wherever you live. It doesn't matter. But, yeah, there's
• 1:52:34
  Speaker 2: no opposition really to this, not from a moral perspective.
• 1:52:37
  Speaker 2: There is from just an execution perspective. Billionaires will leave California.
• 1:52:42
  Speaker 2: That's the bad thing about it.
• 1:52:45
  Speaker 3: And then we won't be able to tax them.
• 1:52:47
  Speaker 4: Speaking of California, me and Yaron will give the good
• 1:52:51
  Speaker 4: fight in California at some point in November. Probably we're
• 1:52:55
  Speaker 4: going to give you more details soon. But if you
• 1:52:57
  Speaker 4: are in the vicinity in mid-November, stay tuned. There's going
• 1:53:00
  Speaker 4: to be an interesting announcement for you.
• 1:53:05
  Speaker 3: Oh, about the debate?
• 1:53:06
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 1:53:07
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 1:53:08
  Speaker 2: All right. Roland says, I just finished watching Eto One Class.
• 1:53:14
  Speaker 2: What a truly great show. Thanks for the recommendation you wrote.
• 1:53:17
  Speaker 2: Itaewon Class. Have you seen this? It's Korean.
• 1:53:22
  Speaker 1: I-T-A-E-W-O-N.
• 1:53:26
  Speaker 2: I-T-A-E-W-O-N Class.
• 1:53:30
  Speaker 1: You and the Korean shows. It's a brilliant show.
• 1:53:34
  Speaker 2: You have to get, again, like most Korean shows, you
• 1:53:37
  Speaker 2: have to get past the first episode. Here, it starts out,
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 2: I thought, this is just like a high school drama,
• 1:53:44
  Speaker 2: the high school kids.
• 1:53:45
  Speaker 3: You know, I'm too old for this.
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 2: But it develops into a show about integrity and about
• 1:53:55
  Speaker 2: sticking with your values. And it has a really, really
• 1:53:58
  Speaker 2: good and interesting romantic angle. Like two women loving the
• 1:54:04
  Speaker 2: same guy and who he chooses between them.
• 1:54:06
  Speaker 3: How he chooses.
• 1:54:07
  Speaker 2: I won't say more because I don't want to give
• 1:54:09
  Speaker 2: it away. Anyway, really good show.
• 1:54:11
  Speaker 1: Is it available on Netflix?
• 1:54:13
  Speaker 2: Yes. Yes. There's another reason to have Netflix.
• 1:54:17
  Speaker 1: Out of curiosity, how do you discover these Korean shows?
• 1:54:20
  Speaker 2: So I discovered.
• 1:54:23
  Speaker 1: Mr.
• 1:54:23
  Speaker 2: Sunshine kind of by accident. For some reason, Netflix kept
• 1:54:27
  Speaker 2: popping it up as this is a show you might
• 1:54:29
  Speaker 2: be interested in.
• 1:54:30
  Speaker 3: So I was on a road trip and I think, yeah, okay.
• 1:54:34
  Speaker 2: Oh, somebody had told me years ago that there was
• 1:54:37
  Speaker 2: a really, really good Korean show. Peter Schwartz really loves
• 1:54:40
  Speaker 2: a Korean show, but you can't find... Copies of it, right?
• 1:54:44
  Speaker 2: It's not on Netflix. It's anywhere. But I knew that
• 1:54:47
  Speaker 2: some objectivists would really like the Korean show once. So
• 1:54:50
  Speaker 2: I said, okay, well, let me watch this. I heard
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 2: maybe there's a Korean show that's good. And I watched
• 1:54:55
  Speaker 2: the first like two episodes and I called my wife
• 1:54:57
  Speaker 2: and said, You got to watch this, you know, see
• 1:55:00
  Speaker 2: if you like it too, because then I'll stop watching
• 1:55:02
  Speaker 2: so we can watch it together. But you have to
• 1:55:04
  Speaker 2: watch like two, three shows. So she watched it and
• 1:55:06
  Speaker 2: she was like, yeah, this is good. Let's watch it together.
• 1:55:09
  Speaker 2: So that's how I discovered that. And then after that,
• 1:55:12
  Speaker 2: I started looking and then people would recommend stuff. So
• 1:55:15
  Speaker 2: I can't remember if Itaewon Class was recommended to me,
• 1:55:17
  Speaker 2: probably was or whether I discovered it. But and now
• 1:55:21
  Speaker 2: I'm I just started. I only watched episode one of
• 1:55:24
  Speaker 2: a new Korean show called. I don't know what it's called.
• 1:55:31
  Speaker 2: Four Hands, Two Sonatas, something like that, about classical pianists,
• 1:55:36
  Speaker 2: two classical pianists.
• 1:55:38
  Speaker 3: So I'll let you guys know if it's any good
• 1:55:41
  Speaker 3: once I go through with it.
• 1:55:41
  Speaker 2: All right, Michael with $ 50.
• 1:55:44
  Speaker 3: Thank you, Michael.
• 1:55:45
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 1:55:47
  Speaker 2: No one uses the term altruism other than objectivists. No,
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 2: I mean, even Guts Sud mentions it in the book positively.
• 1:55:54
  Speaker 2: We're not at the point where the concept is discussed
• 1:55:57
  Speaker 2: or challenged in the culture. Do you see that happening
• 1:56:01
  Speaker 2: in their lifetime? No, people defend it all the time. Remember,
• 1:56:03
  Speaker 2: altruism was a concept invented or created by Augustine Comte,
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 2: and it's discussed, and I gave some books where it's
• 1:56:17
  Speaker 2: criticized earlier. So it's a concept out there. Gadsad actually
• 1:56:26
  Speaker 2: mentions it in the book. But will it become criticized
• 1:56:30
  Speaker 2: in our lifetime? You know, I don't know.
• 1:56:34
  Speaker 3: I think so.
• 1:56:34
  Speaker 2: I mean, there's a Bob Oakley, who's a well-known philosopher,
• 1:56:37
  Speaker 2: has something called pathological altruism.
• 1:56:41
  Speaker 4: And these books were not written 50 years ago.
• 1:56:44
  Speaker 2: No, this was in 2012.
• 1:56:45
  Speaker 3: Written in 2012.
• 1:56:47
  Speaker 2: And influenced, I think, by Ayn Rand. But altruism is
• 1:56:52
  Speaker 2: a concept that's in philosophy. It's not unusual, right? um
• 1:56:59
  Speaker 2: it's not an unusual um uh what do you call
• 1:57:03
  Speaker 2: it uh concept but it's not discussed the way we
• 1:57:07
  Speaker 2: discuss it that's true will that change in my lifetime
• 1:57:11
  Speaker 2: maybe not in mine but maybe in yours michael.
• 1:57:15
  Speaker 4: I'm pretty old well enough with the defeatism we will
• 1:57:18
  Speaker 4: do our best we're doing.
• 1:57:19
  Speaker 2: Our best no question to change that to make it
• 1:57:22
  Speaker 2: the central the central question in morality to make this,
• 1:57:27
  Speaker 2: to bring it to the forefront of the culture. All right, Richard. Nikos,
• 1:57:33
  Speaker 2: I heard you read Das Kapital three times. Have you
• 1:57:37
  Speaker 2: also read Kant? If so, how have you maintained your sanity?
• 1:57:42
  Speaker 4: So some people think that this claim is not true.
• 1:57:44
  Speaker 4: Look how used the book is. I don't know if
• 1:57:46
  Speaker 4: you can see it, right? This is how a book
• 1:57:49
  Speaker 4: that you've read three times looks like. I have not
• 1:57:52
  Speaker 4: read Kant. I've read, obviously, his simple books, the one
• 1:57:55
  Speaker 4: about the Enlightenment, and I used to like it a
• 1:57:57
  Speaker 4: lot when I was younger. I have not read Kant.
• 1:58:02
  Speaker 4: This is why I abstain from commenting on Kant. And
• 1:58:06
  Speaker 4: this is why you're never going to hear me say
• 1:58:08
  Speaker 4: things like Kant was the, you know, the worst person
• 1:58:10
  Speaker 4: in history. If I haven't read him, I would be
• 1:58:14
  Speaker 4: bullshitting you people if I would give you my hot
• 1:58:16
  Speaker 4: takes on Kant. So I refrain from criticizing Kant because
• 1:58:21
  Speaker 4: I trust the people who have criticized him. But even
• 1:58:24
  Speaker 4: these critiques of Kant, I haven't dove deep into it.
• 1:58:30
  Speaker 1: So I haven't got an opinion. A first-hand opinion.
• 1:58:37
  Speaker 2: Just because we're in Kant, Lucinda says, the little Kant
• 1:58:41
  Speaker 2: I've read, I didn't find that difficult. Not easy, but
• 1:58:44
  Speaker 2: not too difficult either. Main barrier for me.
• 1:58:48
  Speaker 4: Well, his treatise on the Enlightenment, it is easy to read,
• 1:58:50
  Speaker 4: which makes it even more annoying how his other books
• 1:58:55
  Speaker 4: are more impenetrable.
• 1:58:56
  Speaker 2: I could not read them.
• 1:58:57
  Speaker 3: Main barrier for me is.
• 1:59:00
  Speaker 2: More so my lack of understanding of the scientific debates
• 1:59:04
  Speaker 2: around that time, though I did read him in English. Yeah,
• 1:59:07
  Speaker 2: I mean, I tried to read him in English too, Lucinda.
• 1:59:09
  Speaker 2: I could not get through him. So... But You know,
• 1:59:13
  Speaker 2: she's probably smarter than I am. Or at least has
• 1:59:17
  Speaker 2: more capability of absorbing that kind of dense philosophy. Andrew says,
• 1:59:24
  Speaker 2: I sense empathy from Rand towards Marilyn Monroe in her essay.
• 1:59:30
  Speaker 3: Definitely.
• 1:59:31
  Speaker 2: A woman better than most, a light spirit, innocent and
• 1:59:35
  Speaker 2: sexually free, her face pushed into the mud by envious inferiors,
• 1:59:40
  Speaker 2: leading to a despair and death. Sad. Yes, you definitely
• 1:59:44
  Speaker 2: see that there's definitely empathy there, but it's bolstered by
• 1:59:48
  Speaker 2: understanding and bolstered by an analysis of kind of the
• 1:59:53
  Speaker 2: culture that shoved her face in the mud, that did
• 1:59:58
  Speaker 2: that to her.
• 1:59:59
  Speaker 3: It's a beautiful essay.
• 2:00:02
  Speaker 4: Don't you also sense empathy from Dagny to Cheryl? Cheryl,
• 2:00:07
  Speaker 4: who seriously offended Dagny, and yet Dagny doesn't hold it...
• 2:00:13
  Speaker 4: as a grudge, and she treats her as a sister
• 2:00:16
  Speaker 4: and she tells her so. So there's a lot of
• 2:00:17
  Speaker 4: empathy there. Isn't there empathy when Howard Rourke goes to Mallory?
• 2:00:23
  Speaker 4: Mallory is at point zero. He's literally crying on his bed.
• 2:00:27
  Speaker 4: There is empathy there. But of course, it's not in
• 2:00:29
  Speaker 4: that language because.
• 2:00:31
  Speaker 1: It's not pity. It is justice, acknowledgement, common struggle.
• 2:00:38
  Speaker 2: There's this empathy that Dagny has towards the bum on
• 2:00:41
  Speaker 2: the train. She doesn't throw him off. Right. Doesn't throw
• 2:00:43
  Speaker 2: him off. So, yeah, absolutely.
• 2:00:48
  Speaker 3: But it's, it's, again, it's not, it's not, I know how.
• 2:00:53
  Speaker 5: You feel, you know, it's like, I have an understanding of,
• 2:00:59
  Speaker 5: of the, of, of, of the circumstances that brought you
• 2:01:02
  Speaker 5: to where you are.
• 2:01:04
  Speaker 2: And, you know, I, I, I understand why you're there.
• 2:01:11
  Speaker 4: And if you think about it, I know how you feel.
• 2:01:13
  Speaker 4: It doesn't say much. I know how Hitler felt when
• 2:01:17
  Speaker 4: he got the poison. I mean, I can imagine it.
• 2:01:20
  Speaker 4: Your whole life has led you to nothing. But okay,
• 2:01:22
  Speaker 4: so what?
• 2:01:26
  Speaker 2: Newly Dan, this is a quote, I guess. No, it's
• 2:01:31
  Speaker 2: not a quote. Maybe it's just him. All humans act
• 2:01:35
  Speaker 2: in what they perceive as their own self-interest. Even Mother
• 2:01:37
  Speaker 2: Teresa is selfish. It is because their subjective view of reality,
• 2:01:41
  Speaker 2: and they have a poor perception of what their best
• 2:01:44
  Speaker 2: interest could be. No, I mean, Ayn Rand rejects that.
• 2:01:48
  Speaker 2: I reject that. It's in The Virtue of Selfishness. There's
• 2:01:51
  Speaker 2: an essay about that. So you can find what Ayn
• 2:01:54
  Speaker 2: Rand actually says about it. But absolutely not. And it's
• 2:01:59
  Speaker 2: an insult to Mother Teresa. She would view it as
• 2:02:02
  Speaker 2: an insult, and I think justifiably so. She didn't think
• 2:02:05
  Speaker 2: that way. And, you know, the Nazis marching, you know,
• 2:02:12
  Speaker 2: to execute Jews in the concentration camps didn't think that.
• 2:02:16
  Speaker 2: They were doing their duty, and their duty was what
• 2:02:20
  Speaker 2: was most important. Now, you could say they viewed their
• 2:02:22
  Speaker 2: duty as self-interest. They viewed their self-sacrifice as self-interest. But
• 2:02:25
  Speaker 2: that makes those concepts mean nothing. It empties the concept
• 2:02:29
  Speaker 2: of all meaning. Yes, they think this is what they
• 2:02:33
  Speaker 2: should do. That is different than, yes, they think that
• 2:02:37
  Speaker 2: is in their self-interest. Self-interest has to mean something. It
• 2:02:41
  Speaker 2: means that it promotes their life. Mother Teresa doesn't care
• 2:02:45
  Speaker 2: about promoting her life. Not in this world, which is
• 2:02:48
  Speaker 2: the only world that counts. She cared about pleasing God.
• 2:02:52
  Speaker 2: She cared about finding a place into heaven. She cared
• 2:02:55
  Speaker 2: about doing what was written in the scripture. So it's
• 2:02:58
  Speaker 2: not that she didn't care. It's not that she didn't
• 2:03:01
  Speaker 2: have a She wasn't motivated, but the motivation wasn't her
• 2:03:07
  Speaker 2: own well-being, which is what self-interest means. That was not
• 2:03:11
  Speaker 2: her own well-being. That was not what she thought about.
• 2:03:14
  Speaker 2: It's not what she studied. It's not what she invested in. So, no,
• 2:03:19
  Speaker 2: the reality is that almost nobody, almost nobody on the
• 2:03:25
  Speaker 2: entire planet Earth of the 8 billion people on the
• 2:03:28
  Speaker 2: planet is self-interested. Because self-interest requires actual effort and focus
• 2:03:34
  Speaker 2: and application of reason to every decision that you, you know,
• 2:03:38
  Speaker 2: almost every decision that you make within a context of
• 2:03:41
  Speaker 2: how do I make every moment of my life the
• 2:03:44
  Speaker 2: best that it can be. And that's a lot of.
• 2:03:49
  Speaker 1: Work.
• 2:03:49
  Speaker 4: How much damage the epistemology of the Austrian school has
• 2:03:53
  Speaker 4: inflicted here, this idea of praxeology, that, yeah, by definition, everyone...
• 2:03:58
  Speaker 4: operates for their best interest so you know even if
• 2:04:01
  Speaker 4: you spend the next week of your life doing everything
• 2:04:05
  Speaker 4: trying to kill yourself from alcohol drugs whatever yeah everyone
• 2:04:10
  Speaker 4: this is another expression of self-interest.
• 2:04:14
  Speaker 2: It's an expression of preferences but preferences are not self-interest
• 2:04:18
  Speaker 2: exactly and there's a big difference between self-interest particularly as
• 2:04:22
  Speaker 2: a moral concept and subjective preference, which is subjective preference.
• 2:04:28
  Speaker 2: It exists, but it's not necessarily equal self-interest.
• 2:04:31
  Speaker 3: They are two different things completely.
• 2:04:36
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 2:04:38
  Speaker 3: Richard says, how.
• 2:04:40
  Speaker 2: Much money would I need to borrow against my house
• 2:04:45
  Speaker 2: for the two of you to review a critique of
• 2:04:47
  Speaker 2: pure reason? Uh....
• 2:04:52
  Speaker 1: Okay, think about it this way.
• 2:04:53
  Speaker 4: To review this, we would need at least one month
• 2:04:57
  Speaker 4: to read it. So I would ask the equivalent of
• 2:05:02
  Speaker 4: my rent, which is not that high, but still.
• 2:05:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think what I ask is going to,
• 2:05:12
  Speaker 2: first of all, I need more than a month.
• 2:05:13
  Speaker 3: To read a critique of pure reason.
• 2:05:15
  Speaker 2: It would take me a lot more than a month
• 2:05:17
  Speaker 2: to read it and understand it because you have to
• 2:05:19
  Speaker 2: understand it. So I would have to read it slowly
• 2:05:21
  Speaker 2: and really think about it because you want to critique
• 2:05:23
  Speaker 2: of the critique of great reason to be a good critique. So,
• 2:05:26
  Speaker 2: you know, I would probably need six months, you know,
• 2:05:30
  Speaker 2: to properly and maybe read some commentary about it so
• 2:05:34
  Speaker 2: that I because I mean, to really understand it. Right.
• 2:05:38
  Speaker 2: Which is I mean, I don't need commentary to understand
• 2:05:41
  Speaker 2: suicide empathy or a lot of what we cover, but
• 2:05:45
  Speaker 2: or history.
• 2:05:45
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 2:05:47
  Speaker 2: Even history. You read commentary about the history. But critique
• 2:05:50
  Speaker 2: of curious, and I'd want to do that. So you
• 2:05:53
  Speaker 2: would need to pay me for six months' worth of work.
• 2:05:57
  Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know how much your house is worth.
• 2:06:00
  Speaker 2: So we're talking... And also... We're well into the six
• 2:06:02
  Speaker 2: figures here. Yeah.
• 2:06:05
  Speaker 4: This would not be a good investment, to be honest
• 2:06:07
  Speaker 4: with you, because even if it would be enough for
• 2:06:09
  Speaker 4: me to put the effort, I'm not trained in philosophy.
• 2:06:13
  Speaker 4: It would be a way better investment to give that
• 2:06:15
  Speaker 4: money to Ben, to Mike, to Ongkar, to people who
• 2:06:21
  Speaker 4: will give you a much better result than whatever I
• 2:06:24
  Speaker 4: would give you even if I committed the rest of
• 2:06:26
  Speaker 4: my life for the next six months doing only this.
• 2:06:29
  Speaker 4: You would get a suboptimal result because I don't know
• 2:06:33
  Speaker 4: who are the people who influenced Kant and what came
• 2:06:35
  Speaker 4: after him. So you wouldn't get something from an expert.
• 2:06:40
  Speaker 2: And you've got And you've got a critique for Mein Rand.
• 2:06:44
  Speaker 2: You've got a critique for Leonard Peikoff, History of Philosophy.
• 2:06:47
  Speaker 2: And I think there was a course taught at part
• 2:06:50
  Speaker 2: of ARU on Kant, I think by Jason Reins. So
• 2:06:54
  Speaker 2: the work has already been done. So I don't know
• 2:06:58
  Speaker 2: why you would want us to double up on something
• 2:07:02
  Speaker 2: we're not enthusiastic about or know enough about.
• 2:07:07
  Speaker 4: But we appreciate that you want to mortgage your house
• 2:07:11
  Speaker 4: here to us talking about Kant. This might be the
• 2:07:13
  Speaker 4: best compliment I've heard in a long time.
• 2:07:17
  Speaker 2: There you go. All right, Remo. Best movie starring Tom
• 2:07:23
  Speaker 2: Hanks and how many stars? God.
• 2:07:27
  Speaker 1: How can it not be Forrest Gump?
• 2:07:32
  Speaker 2: I hate when he starts with how can it not be. Yeah.
• 2:07:37
  Speaker 2: Because I know I'm going to disagree. But how can
• 2:07:39
  Speaker 2: it not be Forrest Gump? I know I'm going to disagree.
• 2:07:42
  Speaker 2: And of course, I do disagree. So you didn't like
• 2:07:48
  Speaker 2: Forrest Gump.
• 2:07:49
  Speaker 1: Forget the philosophy of the movie. As a movie, you
• 2:07:52
  Speaker 1: didn't like it.
• 2:07:54
  Speaker 3: I mean, as what kind of a movie?
• 2:07:56
  Speaker 2: It's enjoyable.
• 2:07:57
  Speaker 3: It's definitely an enjoyable movie.
• 2:07:59
  Speaker 4: But it's... it's the whole history of the united states
• 2:08:02
  Speaker 4: fitting within two.
• 2:08:04
  Speaker 2: Hours in a in a in a in a in
• 2:08:08
  Speaker 2: a completely contrived bizarre story that is not driven by
• 2:08:13
  Speaker 2: the hero of the story. The hero is just accidentally
• 2:08:17
  Speaker 2: in the different places. There's no plot. It has zero plot.
• 2:08:23
  Speaker 2: It has, you know, it's an anti-romantic movie. It's the
• 2:08:27
  Speaker 2: opposite of romantic. Life is like a box of.
• 2:08:29
  Speaker 4: Because that woman is an absolute bitch and she's horrible
• 2:08:32
  Speaker 4: and she's the worst villain in the history of cinema.
• 2:08:35
  Speaker 2: Life is like a box of chocolate. I mean, it's
• 2:08:38
  Speaker 2: just a, you know, silly cliches. It's entertaining. I enjoyed it.
• 2:08:44
  Speaker 2: But it's not a great movie.
• 2:08:46
  Speaker 3: I prefer Big, which is really funny.
• 2:08:50
  Speaker 1: Uh, it hasn't.
• 2:08:50
  Speaker 4: So Forrest Gump hasn't got the best soundtrack that you
• 2:08:53
  Speaker 4: can imagine.
• 2:08:55
  Speaker 1: No, this movie.
• 2:08:57
  Speaker 2: No, your spaghetti movies have a better soundtrack than Forrest Gump.
• 2:09:03
  Speaker 4: This movie taught me the doors, California dreaming, a fortunate song.
• 2:09:08
  Speaker 1: It's it.
• 2:09:09
  Speaker 4: I remember driving to the mountains with my parents, listening
• 2:09:13
  Speaker 4: to the soundtrack of Forrest Gump. I, I grew up
• 2:09:15
  Speaker 4: on the doors, so it didn't teach me much.
• 2:09:18
  Speaker 1: Um, but you didn't answer my challenge.
• 2:09:21
  Speaker 4: So what is a better, where, where does Tom Hanks
• 2:09:24
  Speaker 4: give you a performance, which is better than Forrest Gump?
• 2:09:27
  Speaker 2: Oh, he gives a good performance in, but he gives
• 2:09:29
  Speaker 2: a good performance in it, but he gives, he gives
• 2:09:31
  Speaker 2: good performances in a lot of movies. Uh, I'm looking,
• 2:09:35
  Speaker 2: I'm looking at a list of his movies. So let me,
• 2:09:38
  Speaker 2: let me, I can definitely find better movies. I think
• 2:09:41
  Speaker 2: he gives a brilliant performance in Philadelphia where he plays a, uh,
• 2:09:44
  Speaker 2: you know, uh, uh, He and Denzel Washington are in
• 2:09:49
  Speaker 2: their movie. Apollo 13 is a great movie with Tom Hanks.
• 2:09:57
  Speaker 2: I think he's really good in that.
• 2:09:58
  Speaker 1: Sleepless in Seattle.
• 2:10:01
  Speaker 2: That's a fun movie. He's good in it, but it's
• 2:10:03
  Speaker 2: not a particularly challenging, not a particularly challenging.
• 2:10:06
  Speaker 3: Acting, acting job.
• 2:10:08
  Speaker 2: I mean, there are all these, I mean, unfortunately he's,
• 2:10:15
  Speaker 2: He's appeared in a lot of.
• 2:10:17
  Speaker 3: What I would say, mediocre movies. A lot of mediocre movies.
• 2:10:22
  Speaker 4: Fun fact, he's a Greek citizen. He got an honorary citizenship.
• 2:10:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 2:10:27
  Speaker 4: He likes visiting a small Greek island. And the prime
• 2:10:30
  Speaker 4: minister made him an honorary citizen a few years ago.
• 2:10:34
  Speaker 2: He was good in The Bridge of Spies.
• 2:10:36
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
• 2:10:37
  Speaker 2: He was good in Sully. But the pilot who landed
• 2:10:42
  Speaker 2: the plane in the Hudson... yeah I mean he's good
• 2:10:48
  Speaker 2: in a lot of movies but he doesn't stand out
• 2:10:50
  Speaker 2: to me as you know this is a great actor
• 2:10:53
  Speaker 2: it might be that his best role it might be
• 2:10:56
  Speaker 2: that Nikos is right that his best role is in
• 2:11:00
  Speaker 2: Forrest Gump even though I don't like the movie.
• 2:11:03
  Speaker 1: We ended up where we began three minutes ago there
• 2:11:05
  Speaker 1: you go.
• 2:11:07
  Speaker 2: I like him in Big he's very young in those
• 2:11:09
  Speaker 2: days but it's a funny movie which I enjoyed um Okay,
• 2:11:15
  Speaker 2: so maybe it's Forrest Gump. All right. I looked through
• 2:11:19
  Speaker 2: all the movies, and none of them are inspiring me.
• 2:11:23
  Speaker 2: But I don't give Forrest Gump more than, I don't know,
• 2:11:26
  Speaker 2: how are we rating movies and how many stars? Ten.
• 2:11:29
  Speaker 1: Ten.
• 2:11:31
  Speaker 2: I don't know, six or seven, something like that.
• 2:11:34
  Speaker 1: Okay, seven, I can live with that.
• 2:11:37
  Speaker 4: Come on, how fun would it be when we do
• 2:11:39
  Speaker 4: that rating episode that I haven't sold you on yet?
• 2:11:44
  Speaker 2: We have to find the right way to frame it.
• 2:11:47
  Speaker 2: It's all in the framing. All right. I Like Number says,
• 2:11:51
  Speaker 2: Disney's American Horror Story has an episode with Ayn Rand
• 2:11:54
  Speaker 2: and Thatcher in hell with Brown and other woman they
• 2:11:58
  Speaker 2: don't like. God is hardly the problem.
• 2:12:02
  Speaker 1: What's that?
• 2:12:03
  Speaker 4: God.
• 2:12:04
  Speaker 2: Disney's show, American Horror Story, has an episode with Ayn
• 2:12:09
  Speaker 2: Rand and Thatcher in.
• 2:12:10
  Speaker 3: Hell with Brown and.
• 2:12:13
  Speaker 2: Brown... nazi and other women they don't like and then
• 2:12:20
  Speaker 2: so the point is god is hardly the problem god's
• 2:12:22
  Speaker 2: side is hardly the problem well but he is the
• 2:12:24
  Speaker 2: problem because we're fighting disney and the question is the
• 2:12:29
  Speaker 2: quality of the people who are on our side if
• 2:12:32
  Speaker 2: we're fighting this attitude of Disney. We want good people
• 2:12:38
  Speaker 2: on our side and we want people that add credibility
• 2:12:42
  Speaker 2: and that, you know, make it possible for us to win.
• 2:12:44
  Speaker 2: But I think that a book like Suicide and Empathy
• 2:12:48
  Speaker 2: undermines our credibility to the extent that we're on the
• 2:12:50
  Speaker 2: same side as God. In our fight over the left,
• 2:12:54
  Speaker 2: this book undermines.
• 2:12:56
  Speaker 3: It doesn't help.
• 2:12:57
  Speaker 2: It undermines. So you got to care about the quality
• 2:13:01
  Speaker 2: of your perceived allies. Now, I don't You know, I'm
• 2:13:04
  Speaker 2: not sure that he's an ally, but I like numbers
• 2:13:07
  Speaker 2: certainly thinks he's an ally. Beware of your allies. And
• 2:13:11
  Speaker 2: remember what Ayn Rand wrote about conservatives. She did not
• 2:13:15
  Speaker 2: consider conservatives allies. I don't know why you'd think that
• 2:13:19
  Speaker 2: we would disagree with Ayn Rand.
• 2:13:21
  Speaker 4: And think of it this way. Think you have a
• 2:13:24
  Speaker 4: cousin who is a brilliant mind. He's someone MIT, Silicon Valley.
• 2:13:29
  Speaker 4: He grew up a leftist, but now he has started
• 2:13:31
  Speaker 4: having second thoughts. Very clever guy. And you give him
• 2:13:34
  Speaker 4: this book and you tell him this is my side.
• 2:13:37
  Speaker 4: What do you think will happen? He will read the
• 2:13:39
  Speaker 4: book and tell you, oh, you know what? Turns out
• 2:13:42
  Speaker 4: maybe you have a point. Or will he say, OK, yeah,
• 2:13:44
  Speaker 4: as I as I suspected, you guys are all buffoons. Yeah,
• 2:13:48
  Speaker 4: I'll just I'll stop dealing with politics anyway. My side
• 2:13:51
  Speaker 4: is crazy, but your side is not serious either.
• 2:13:54
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And I like how he says he's at least
• 2:13:56
  Speaker 2: bringing up a different way of talk about altruism. Have you,
• 2:14:00
  Speaker 2: did you listen to what we said? It's like you
• 2:14:03
  Speaker 2: guys listen to the show. You hear the words coming
• 2:14:06
  Speaker 2: out of our mouths and nothing actually registers.
• 2:14:11
  Speaker 1: Well, if this happens, this is also our responsibility.
• 2:14:13
  Speaker 4: But I think we mentioned 10 different times how he
• 2:14:17
  Speaker 4: brings altruism back from the window.
• 2:14:20
  Speaker 2: And brings it up positively, not negatively. So it's exactly
• 2:14:24
  Speaker 2: not another way of talking about altruism.
• 2:14:27
  Speaker 4: We hoped it would be another way of talking about altruism,
• 2:14:29
  Speaker 4: but turns out it's not.
• 2:14:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 2:14:32
  Speaker 2: Listen to six months would not be enough to understand
• 2:14:35
  Speaker 2: critique of pure reason.
• 2:14:38
  Speaker 1: Possibly.
• 2:14:39
  Speaker 2: I didn't find the bits I've read of it as
• 2:14:42
  Speaker 2: difficult as people made it out to be, but it
• 2:14:45
  Speaker 2: does require a lot of patience and you have to
• 2:14:48
  Speaker 2: go insanely slow with it. Yeah. I, I, I, I
• 2:14:52
  Speaker 2: said six months as a guess.
• 2:14:54
  Speaker 3: I have no idea. I think you're probably right, Lucinda.
• 2:15:00
  Speaker 4: So for Das Kapital, for example, it's probably smaller than
• 2:15:04
  Speaker 4: Atlas Shrugged. This requires at least three, four months with
• 2:15:10
  Speaker 4: a companion. Don't even try to dive into it by yourself.
• 2:15:14
  Speaker 4: So the critique of pure reason, without a companion, yes,
• 2:15:17
  Speaker 4: six months might not.
• 2:15:18
  Speaker 1: Be an exaggeration.
• 2:15:20
  Speaker 3: No way for me.
• 2:15:22
  Speaker 2: All right, Remo says, best movie starring Anthony Hopkins. Now,
• 2:15:28
  Speaker 2: that's a bigger challenge. Okay, I have to search Anthony
• 2:15:31
  Speaker 2: Hopkins movies.
• 2:15:32
  Speaker 4: What is the movie, not the one with Nicole Kidman?
• 2:15:38
  Speaker 1: Wait.
• 2:15:39
  Speaker 2: He says, I would say The Edge or Amistad. I
• 2:15:43
  Speaker 2: also really like The Bridge Too Far, amazing cast, but
• 2:15:46
  Speaker 2: not the best movie, of course. Okay, let's see.
• 2:15:49
  Speaker 4: The Human Stain was good.
• 2:15:51
  Speaker 1: It has some good scenes.
• 2:15:53
  Speaker 4: Obviously Hannibal Lecter is a great performance.
• 2:15:59
  Speaker 2: Um alright um I'm just looking through the list of
• 2:16:08
  Speaker 2: movies he's done a lot of movies a lot of
• 2:16:13
  Speaker 2: movies I mean he's got a King Lear so um
• 2:16:24
  Speaker 2: but he's also got, he also starred in Transformers. So
• 2:16:27
  Speaker 2: he's done the whole gamut. Um, he did the dress.
• 2:16:31
  Speaker 1: Some of them have atrocious, uh, scores in, uh, in IMDB.
• 2:16:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 2:16:35
  Speaker 2: He, he's very good in the dresser, although I don't
• 2:16:38
  Speaker 2: like the movie. Um, all.
• 2:16:42
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 2:16:42
  Speaker 2: Where is it? I'm kicking. I'm going down the list. God,
• 2:16:45
  Speaker 2: so many movies. Um, And I haven't watched most of these. Oh,
• 2:16:52
  Speaker 2: he played Alfred Hitchcock in Hitchcock. He was really good
• 2:16:58
  Speaker 2: in that. Again, not a particularly good movie, but I
• 2:17:01
  Speaker 2: enjoyed it.
• 2:17:02
  Speaker 4: Oh, he played in Alexander. I forgot about that.
• 2:17:05
  Speaker 2: Yes. No, he's been in... There's no end to this.
• 2:17:09
  Speaker 2: This just keeps going on.
• 2:17:11
  Speaker 1: Mask of Zorro. I forgot about that. Well, come on.
• 2:17:14
  Speaker 4: It has to be Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal. Oh,
• 2:17:18
  Speaker 4: The Remains of the Day, of course.
• 2:17:21
  Speaker 2: No, I actually think... Oh, Dracula!
• 2:17:23
  Speaker 1: Yes!
• 2:17:24
  Speaker 4: Okay, I decided. My favorite is Dracula. By the way,
• 2:17:28
  Speaker 4: I don't like horror movies. I don't like the genre.
• 2:17:31
  Speaker 4: Dracula is... Without any doubt, the phrase you hate, Francis
• 2:17:38
  Speaker 4: Ford Cobbler-Drago, the most romantic movie ever made in the
• 2:17:41
  Speaker 4: history of the cinema.
• 2:17:43
  Speaker 1: And there he's very good. Of course, Gary Oldman is.
• 2:17:50
  Speaker 4: should have gotten an Oscar for that Dracula, but everyone
• 2:17:54
  Speaker 4: who plays there, they're very, very good.
• 2:17:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so there are a number of movies that I
• 2:17:59
  Speaker 2: think he's excellent. Amistad, he plays Quincy Adams, the son
• 2:18:05
  Speaker 2: of John Adams. But it's not a major role, but
• 2:18:08
  Speaker 2: he is excellent in it. He plays a major role
• 2:18:13
  Speaker 2: in The Edge, and he's really, really good. So maybe
• 2:18:18
  Speaker 2: The Edge, that's the one where he plays a millionaire.
• 2:18:21
  Speaker 2: It's a survivalist story in the woods, and it's one
• 2:18:25
  Speaker 2: of the only movies ever where the successful rich businessman
• 2:18:31
  Speaker 2: is the good guy, right?
• 2:18:32
  Speaker 3: One of the only, and he's really good in it.
• 2:18:34
  Speaker 2: He's also very good, another one where he's a millionaire,
• 2:18:37
  Speaker 2: who's a successful millionaire, he's a good guy, is in
• 2:18:40
  Speaker 2: Meet Joe Black, which is also a movie that I recommended,
• 2:18:45
  Speaker 2: which has, what's his name, the good-looking Achilles. What's his name?
• 2:18:52
  Speaker 4: Brad Pitt is the good-looking Achilles.
• 2:18:58
  Speaker 2: Meet Jack Black is those two. So that's another good one. Uh,
• 2:19:04
  Speaker 2: he's in Legends of the Fall. He's the father in
• 2:19:07
  Speaker 2: Legends of the Fall. That's a, that's a really, uh,
• 2:19:10
  Speaker 2: you know, that's a good movie. Um, he's in Chaplin.
• 2:19:14
  Speaker 2: I mean, God, he's in so many movies. Um, I mean,
• 2:19:20
  Speaker 2: I'm not a fan of Silence of the Lamb. I'm sure,
• 2:19:23
  Speaker 2: I know he's good in it, but I'm not a
• 2:19:25
  Speaker 2: fan of the movies. Those are good movies. The Edge and, uh,
• 2:19:28
  Speaker 2: and Legends of the Fall and, um, What was the
• 2:19:34
  Speaker 2: other one?
• 2:19:37
  Speaker 3: An Amistad.
• 2:19:38
  Speaker 2: Amistad is my favorite Spielberg movie, I think. Let's see.
• 2:19:43
  Speaker 2: I'm just looking to see some of his older movies.
• 2:19:48
  Speaker 3: Elephant Man.
• 2:19:49
  Speaker 2: Wow. I forgot he was in Elephant Man. Yeah, I mean,
• 2:19:57
  Speaker 2: I'd say any one of those, and those are all
• 2:19:59
  Speaker 2: good movies. I'd give The Edge an eight probably. Legend
• 2:20:03
  Speaker 2: of the Fall maybe gets an 8. And Amistad gets
• 2:20:10
  Speaker 2: an 8. So those are all good movies. Maybe even
• 2:20:14
  Speaker 2: a 9. Amistad maybe gets a 9. 9?
• 2:20:18
  Speaker 1: I don't think we've given 9 to any movie. I
• 2:20:22
  Speaker 1: don't know.
• 2:20:22
  Speaker 2: We have to calibrate this based on... But I think
• 2:20:26
  Speaker 2: it's a 9. I think it's a 9. Oh, we
• 2:20:30
  Speaker 2: also played in the World's Fastest Indian. That was a
• 2:20:32
  Speaker 2: fun movie. Um, he builds a really fast car. Um,
• 2:20:39
  Speaker 2: but yeah, I mean, what a career he said, uh,
• 2:20:43
  Speaker 2: you know, uh, I wonder, I wonder if I asked, um, uh,
• 2:20:50
  Speaker 2: if I asked, um, well, not you on AI, but
• 2:20:55
  Speaker 2: if I can tell you what, uh, Google AI says
• 2:20:59
  Speaker 2: silence of the lamb, um, The Father, Remains of the Day,
• 2:21:02
  Speaker 2: Elephant Man, Lion of Winter. Oh, he's excellent in The
• 2:21:06
  Speaker 2: Lion of Winter. But that's really Peter O'Toole. That's really
• 2:21:10
  Speaker 2: not him. I don't know why. He has a minor
• 2:21:13
  Speaker 2: role there. Peter O'Toole. That's a great Peter O'Toole movie. Yeah,
• 2:21:19
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 2:21:20
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 2:21:20
  Speaker 2: I don't like other people's lists. All right. Keith says,
• 2:21:28
  Speaker 2: please consider show... Uncompt and positivism.
• 2:21:35
  Speaker 1: Not for me.
• 2:21:36
  Speaker 2: All right. Lucinda says, a question for people that say
• 2:21:40
  Speaker 2: morality is only possible through God. How does God make
• 2:21:44
  Speaker 2: morality possible? By what means? If it's heaven and hell,
• 2:21:48
  Speaker 2: then morality boils down to divine might makes right. Yeah,
• 2:21:52
  Speaker 2: I mean, but that's what it is, right? It's exactly
• 2:21:56
  Speaker 2: what it is.
• 2:21:57
  Speaker 1: It's dictation.
• 2:21:58
  Speaker 3: It's duty.
• 2:22:00
  Speaker 2: God says it's right, therefore it's right. There's no justification
• 2:22:03
  Speaker 2: beyond that. God is omniscient, omnipotent. He knows everything he knows.
• 2:22:07
  Speaker 2: So he's defined morality. Morality is within God to define.
• 2:22:11
  Speaker 2: There's nothing beyond that. Roland, in socialist Hungary, we had
• 2:22:18
  Speaker 2: this thing called unemployment inside factory gates. People officially had
• 2:22:25
  Speaker 2: jobs but actually did nothing. Yeah, I mean, every union
• 2:22:28
  Speaker 2: has that. I read this book about Ford, and Ford
• 2:22:31
  Speaker 2: used to have people who, you know, didn't really do anything,
• 2:22:37
  Speaker 2: but they couldn't lay them off. And it was a
• 2:22:40
  Speaker 2: recognized job category of you don't do anything. You show
• 2:22:43
  Speaker 2: up to work, but you don't do anything. But they
• 2:22:45
  Speaker 2: got paid without doing anything. So I think any unionized
• 2:22:50
  Speaker 2: thing has that. Lucinda says she subscribed to Nikos' Patreon
• 2:22:55
  Speaker 2: a couple of days ago. There you go.
• 2:22:57
  Speaker 1: Thank you very much.
• 2:22:58
  Speaker 2: I appreciate it. I don't know if she's subscribed to
• 2:23:00
  Speaker 2: my Patreon, but she's subscribed to yours.
• 2:23:02
  Speaker 4: Just on time for the next deep dive, which will
• 2:23:04
  Speaker 4: be the years that made environmentalism mainstream in the 60s
• 2:23:08
  Speaker 4: and the 70s.
• 2:23:09
  Speaker 1: Where else are you going to hear that?
• 2:23:11
  Speaker 2: Yep. What was it? Silent Spring.
• 2:23:15
  Speaker 1: Not only.
• 2:23:16
  Speaker 2: Silent Spring.
• 2:23:18
  Speaker 3: It's the beginning.
• 2:23:19
  Speaker 1: Nixon, first Earth Day, the population bomb.
• 2:23:22
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 2:23:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 2:23:24
  Speaker 2: She writes the book, she dies within two years or something.
• 2:23:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 2:23:28
  Speaker 4: Which was part of her mystique that she was very
• 2:23:32
  Speaker 4: devoted to pass the message.
• 2:23:33
  Speaker 2: Yep. Roland, here I have to side with Nikos. I
• 2:23:38
  Speaker 2: like the way people dress in Westminster.
• 2:23:42
  Speaker 1: Of course. Here's a gentleman with taste.
• 2:23:45
  Speaker 2: Yep. I am proud of my lack of taste when
• 2:23:48
  Speaker 2: it comes to these things. All right. Lucinda, Rick and
• 2:23:51
  Speaker 2: Morty actually started out as a short parody of Back
• 2:23:55
  Speaker 2: to the Future called Doc and Marty. You can find
• 2:23:59
  Speaker 2: that on YouTube if interested. Used to be into the
• 2:24:02
  Speaker 2: show in 2019 when I was 14. She was 14
• 2:24:04
  Speaker 2: in 2019. Lucinda, you're on.
• 2:24:05
  Speaker 1: Thoughts on....
• 2:24:15
  Speaker 2: Serenity, the Firefly movie. I have issues with it, but
• 2:24:20
  Speaker 2: I can forgive most of them because it's not easy
• 2:24:24
  Speaker 2: to finish up a story meant for multiple seasons in
• 2:24:26
  Speaker 2: around two hours. Yeah, I mean, I have to say,
• 2:24:29
  Speaker 2: I love that movie because I love Firefly and the movie,
• 2:24:35
  Speaker 2: I thought, actually did a good job in finishing up. Now, granted,
• 2:24:40
  Speaker 2: it needed a whole season to build it up, There's
• 2:24:44
  Speaker 2: a lot of skipping. There's a lot of assumptions. There's
• 2:24:47
  Speaker 2: a lot of there's a plot holes in it. So
• 2:24:50
  Speaker 2: you're right in that sense. I, too, have issues with it.
• 2:24:53
  Speaker 2: But I think it actually given that it's got a
• 2:24:57
  Speaker 2: two hour mission to wrap up the story of Firefly.
• 2:25:00
  Speaker 2: I think it does it really well.
• 2:25:03
  Speaker 3: And I think I think it's well directed.
• 2:25:06
  Speaker 2: It's I can't I can't remember if it's directed by
• 2:25:09
  Speaker 2: the same director as directed the series. I think so.
• 2:25:13
  Speaker 2: I think he came back to do the movie. Sadly,
• 2:25:17
  Speaker 2: he's been kicked out of Hollywood for, well, maybe not sadly,
• 2:25:22
  Speaker 2: but for, you know, I guess abusing his actors. But, yeah,
• 2:25:31
  Speaker 2: I'm a huge fan. I'm a huge fan. And I
• 2:25:34
  Speaker 2: didn't buy all the criticism of Serenity. I thought I
• 2:25:37
  Speaker 2: actually did a pretty good job given the assignment, which
• 2:25:40
  Speaker 2: was to wrap it all up. Have you ever seen Firefly?
• 2:25:44
  Speaker 1: Nope.
• 2:25:44
  Speaker 2: Really?
• 2:25:45
  Speaker 1: No idea what you're talking about, but that's okay.
• 2:25:47
  Speaker 3: It is such a good show.
• 2:25:49
  Speaker 1: It's a science fiction. I guess this is how people
• 2:25:51
  Speaker 1: feel when I talk about football.
• 2:25:52
  Speaker 2: It's a science fiction show, which is episodic, but it
• 2:25:59
  Speaker 2: has like a story theme going through it. And it's
• 2:26:05
  Speaker 2: almost like it's got a certain sense of a Western.
• 2:26:09
  Speaker 2: It's got like a feel of a modern Western. And
• 2:26:14
  Speaker 2: so it's a group of kind of different characters on
• 2:26:19
  Speaker 2: a spaceship going from different planets and having different adventures.
• 2:26:23
  Speaker 2: And it's very character-driven, so the characters.
• 2:26:26
  Speaker 3: Drive the plot.
• 2:26:27
  Speaker 2: It's very good. I don't know if it's on Netflix,
• 2:26:31
  Speaker 2: but if you have a chance to watch it, it's
• 2:26:33
  Speaker 2: worth watching.
• 2:26:36
  Speaker 4: With all the work that goes in these episodes, there's
• 2:26:38
  Speaker 4: no time for TV series.
• 2:26:41
  Speaker 2: Unless somebody subsidizes his watching a TV series like, you know,
• 2:26:48
  Speaker 2: you guys paying Nikos to watch Firefly. And then we'll
• 2:26:52
  Speaker 2: do a whole show. We could do a show on Firefly.
• 2:26:55
  Speaker 2: Firefly has enough philosophical content in it to.
• 2:26:59
  Speaker 3: Do a whole show on it.
• 2:27:00
  Speaker 4: Otherwise, I'll keep reading about the war in Suez, which
• 2:27:03
  Speaker 4: is going to be the show in a month or so.
• 2:27:05
  Speaker 2: Frank, evicted Madrid lady died. What next in Spain now?
• 2:27:11
  Speaker 4: I don't know.
• 2:27:12
  Speaker 2: More demonstrations, but elections are coming up. While there's a
• 2:27:17
  Speaker 2: lot of sympathy for this lady and hatred of landlords,
• 2:27:23
  Speaker 2: there's also a lot of hatred for this government. So
• 2:27:26
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure how the elections are going to go. Obviously,
• 2:27:29
  Speaker 2: the prime minister thinks he's going to get the sympathy vote.
• 2:27:34
  Speaker 2: So he's going to win the election. We will see.
• 2:27:37
  Speaker 2: We will see. uh political projections i'm not good at
• 2:27:43
  Speaker 2: but you know they'll keep demonstrating demonstrate i mean i
• 2:27:46
  Speaker 2: i saw the demonstration in madrid we i walked through
• 2:27:49
  Speaker 2: it and they were having fun they were really enjoying
• 2:27:51
  Speaker 2: it they had a tent city built out all these
• 2:27:54
  Speaker 2: kids sitting around smoking and talking and having a good time,
• 2:27:58
  Speaker 2: playing music once in a while, getting up there and
• 2:27:59
  Speaker 2: waving their flags.
• 2:28:01
  Speaker 3: Demonstrations are fun when you're young.
• 2:28:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and remember that the biggest copycat from Occupy was
• 2:28:08
  Speaker 4: the Indignados movement in Madrid.
• 2:28:10
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 2:28:11
  Speaker 4: Actually, maybe it was the other way around. Occupy was
• 2:28:14
  Speaker 4: a copycat of the Indignados.
• 2:28:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe, but this looks like Occupy. It was basically
• 2:28:19
  Speaker 2: Occupy for rent, for rent control. Justin Pokey, If AI
• 2:28:26
  Speaker 2: produces a scientific discovery too complex for a human to
• 2:28:29
  Speaker 2: understand or verify, can it be recognized as genuine knowledge?
• 2:28:34
  Speaker 2: And who deserves intellectual credit for it?
• 2:28:36
  Speaker 1: Well, no.
• 2:28:36
  Speaker 2: I mean, if humans literally can't understand it, how do
• 2:28:39
  Speaker 2: we know that it's a scientific discovery?
• 2:28:41
  Speaker 3: How do we know its knowledge?
• 2:28:44
  Speaker 1: How do we know.
• 2:28:44
  Speaker 2: Anything about it? And the AI gets credit for it, sure,
• 2:28:49
  Speaker 2: but it has to be understandable. Otherwise, it's not knowledge
• 2:28:53
  Speaker 2: by definition. Mary Alene, you're on four hands, two sonatas,
• 2:28:59
  Speaker 2: doesn't end well. You may not want to spend your
• 2:29:02
  Speaker 2: time on it. Very disappointing. Oh, shit. All right. Now
• 2:29:10
  Speaker 2: I don't know what to do. All right.
• 2:29:15
  Speaker 3: I'll probably believe you, Mary Alene, and drop it.
• 2:29:20
  Speaker 2: All right. Anem, don't some people think Rand was unfair
• 2:29:24
  Speaker 2: to Kant? Yes, some people do. Some philosophers do. I
• 2:29:31
  Speaker 2: don't know any objectivist philosophers who think she was unfair
• 2:29:34
  Speaker 2: to Kant. I think all the objectivist philosophers I know
• 2:29:37
  Speaker 2: ultimately agree with her verdict, even if they would go
• 2:29:41
  Speaker 2: about it, explaining it a little differently, maybe. But I
• 2:29:45
  Speaker 2: don't know anybody who's an objectivist philosopher who doesn't agree, right?
• 2:29:52
  Speaker 2: I think there are lots of people who... who like
• 2:29:57
  Speaker 2: Ayn Rand, who disagree with Robert Kant, but again, objectivist philosophers,
• 2:30:02
  Speaker 2: I think all agree. I like how it says, Nikos
• 2:30:10
  Speaker 2: has withheld judgment.
• 2:30:13
  Speaker 1: On what is that?
• 2:30:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I withheld judgment on things that I don't, and
• 2:30:17
  Speaker 4: you should not take me seriously if I don't withhold
• 2:30:19
  Speaker 4: judgments on things that I shouldn't be passing a judgment.
• 2:30:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, let me just comment on that. I mean,
• 2:30:32
  Speaker 2: there's a sense in which that's right. But there's also
• 2:30:36
  Speaker 2: a sense in which there are lots of things that
• 2:30:38
  Speaker 2: I haven't delved deeply into that I hold as truths
• 2:30:42
  Speaker 2: and I act as if they're true. And, you know,
• 2:30:47
  Speaker 2: there are people who I take as experts, just like
• 2:30:49
  Speaker 2: I take my doctor as an expert in medicine. There
• 2:30:51
  Speaker 2: are people I take as experts in philosophy who I
• 2:30:54
  Speaker 2: trust and it's not held at quite the same level
• 2:30:56
  Speaker 2: of knowledge as stuff I've gone deep into, but it's
• 2:30:59
  Speaker 2: still there. I still, you know, everything I've read about Kant,
• 2:31:03
  Speaker 2: even though I haven't read Kant himself, it seems to, uh,
• 2:31:08
  Speaker 2: you know, uh, from the view of him.
• 2:31:11
  Speaker 1: Oh, of course, 100%.
• 2:31:13
  Speaker 4: But then you shouldn't ask for my view. You should
• 2:31:16
  Speaker 4: go to the people who gave that view. Because otherwise,
• 2:31:20
  Speaker 4: for me, you would get just a recycled version of
• 2:31:22
  Speaker 4: the things that I've read. So there is no value
• 2:31:24
  Speaker 4: also to you, dear viewer, if you come to me
• 2:31:28
  Speaker 4: with a question on Kant, because you're not going to
• 2:31:30
  Speaker 4: get something original or very deep.
• 2:31:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's right. Lucinda, I'm with Nikos when
• 2:31:36
  Speaker 2: it comes to spaghetti westerns. Once upon a time in
• 2:31:38
  Speaker 2: the West, one of my favorite movies maybe that's why
• 2:31:42
  Speaker 2: she's giving you the patreon and not me um.
• 2:31:46
  Speaker 4: The the best uh yeah the best spaghetti westerns is
• 2:31:50
  Speaker 4: not that the best of the spaghetti westerns is for
• 2:31:53
  Speaker 4: a few dollars for a few dollars more because it's
• 2:31:56
  Speaker 4: the more value driven i know yaron will tell you
• 2:31:59
  Speaker 4: it's nihilistic it clearly is not nihilistic there are two
• 2:32:02
  Speaker 4: good people and one bad guy and there's a very
• 2:32:06
  Speaker 4: nice story with excellent music what's not to.
• 2:32:09
  Speaker 2: Like somebody should pay us to do a whole show
• 2:32:11
  Speaker 2: on spaghetti westerns uh that would be fun i've actually
• 2:32:13
  Speaker 2: got a lecture i gave 40 years ago uh on
• 2:32:18
  Speaker 2: spaghetti western spaghetti westerns is a big chunk of it
• 2:32:20
  Speaker 2: it was on westerns more broadly and i'd happy to
• 2:32:24
  Speaker 2: recreate parts of that uh for that show um Lucinda
• 2:32:30
  Speaker 2: also says, it's recommended to get a Kant dictionary for
• 2:32:35
  Speaker 2: reading Critique of Pure Reason. Yeah, I mean, this is
• 2:32:38
  Speaker 2: why I'll never do it, because I don't care enough.
• 2:32:41
  Speaker 2: I'm not interested enough. I'm not curious enough to invest
• 2:32:45
  Speaker 2: that kind of time and effort into doing it. And
• 2:32:48
  Speaker 2: then she continues. For reading Kant, it's good to read
• 2:32:51
  Speaker 2: Paul Gouillier's introduction to situate how Kant stands towards his contemporaries.
• 2:32:58
  Speaker 2: I'm sure she's right. Yeah, again, this is why I
• 2:33:03
  Speaker 2: won't do it. Frank says, Hopkins was known with QB7.
• 2:33:09
  Speaker 2: I remember QB7 TV show about, do you ever see QB7?
• 2:33:13
  Speaker 2: Do you read the book?
• 2:33:15
  Speaker 1: No.
• 2:33:16
  Speaker 3: It's by Leon Uris.
• 2:33:18
  Speaker 2: It's a book about the, a defamation trial in the
• 2:33:24
  Speaker 2: UK over Holocaust denial. Oh. And it's very, very, very good.
• 2:33:32
  Speaker 2: And Anthony Hopkins plays in the TV show. So it's good.
• 2:33:39
  Speaker 2: Why do you guys want movie reviews for $ 2? Like,
• 2:33:44
  Speaker 2: they keep asking about movies. I mean, you'll get $ 2
• 2:33:47
  Speaker 2: worth of movie review. What can I say? Sorry, Andrew,
• 2:33:51
  Speaker 2: but it's just striking. Shazbat is throwing $ 500, $ 250 for
• 2:33:54
  Speaker 2: movie reviews and stuff, and And then what's your opinion about...
• 2:33:59
  Speaker 2: All right, Lucinda says, Firefly is on Disney +. You
• 2:34:03
  Speaker 2: have no excuses, Nikos.
• 2:34:05
  Speaker 1: Well, I have the excuse that no one has given
• 2:34:07
  Speaker 1: me money for it. It's on Disney +.
• 2:34:08
  Speaker 2: That's quite a good excuse. Here she says, if Nikos
• 2:34:13
  Speaker 2: knew how good Firefly was, he'd make time to watch it.
• 2:34:18
  Speaker 2: Have some Firefly novels, but haven't read them yet. All right.
• 2:34:23
  Speaker 2: So there's, you've got Lucinda's endorsement that Firefly is a
• 2:34:27
  Speaker 2: great show.
• 2:34:29
  Speaker 4: I don't even know what it's about. I have zero idea.
• 2:34:32
  Speaker 4: I don't know if it's a drama, comedy, history.
• 2:34:34
  Speaker 2: It's a Western set in the future. It's a sci-fi Western.
• 2:34:39
  Speaker 1: I'm not sold on the idea, but okay.
• 2:34:42
  Speaker 2: It's really good.
• 2:34:45
  Speaker 4: But you see, that's what spaghetti Westerns, they have spoiled
• 2:34:49
  Speaker 4: for me.
• 2:34:49
  Speaker 1: I don't think I've ever.
• 2:34:50
  Speaker 4: Enjoyed a Western, with the exception of John Wayne Westerns,
• 2:34:54
  Speaker 4: after the spaghetti Western, because I've watched them.
• 2:34:56
  Speaker 1: So many times as a kid. It became... The only
• 2:35:00
  Speaker 1: Westerns I could watch.
• 2:35:02
  Speaker 2: Have you ever seen Shane?
• 2:35:05
  Speaker 1: No, no.
• 2:35:06
  Speaker 4: The book is so good that I cannot watch the movie.
• 2:35:08
  Speaker 4: I'm sure the movie is going to be a letdown.
• 2:35:10
  Speaker 4: The first letdown, of course, is already the clothes he wears.
• 2:35:14
  Speaker 4: In the book, he's described as wearing black. Why is
• 2:35:18
  Speaker 4: he wearing brown in the movie? There are these small
• 2:35:21
  Speaker 4: details that piss me off so much.
• 2:35:22
  Speaker 1: Why do you have to do that?
• 2:35:24
  Speaker 2: No question the book is better than the movie. No question.
• 2:35:27
  Speaker 3: The movie is a really good movie.
• 2:35:29
  Speaker 2: If you hadn't read the book, then the movie is
• 2:35:31
  Speaker 2: a great Western. And that's a great Western. Also, I've heard.
• 2:35:36
  Speaker 4: There are some small differences with the book. And again,
• 2:35:38
  Speaker 4: this pisses me off because it's a book I read
• 2:35:40
  Speaker 4: like once every year.
• 2:35:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a great book. And that's a great Western
• 2:35:45
  Speaker 2: as compared to a spaghetti Western. Compare that book for
• 2:35:50
  Speaker 2: a handful of dollars or whatever.
• 2:35:52
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. No, no. Yes, I accept that.
• 2:35:56
  Speaker 2: Mary Eileen says, four hands, stupid ending in the monastery.
• 2:35:59
  Speaker 2: So now we've got two. Oh, it's the same Mary Eileen.
• 2:36:03
  Speaker 2: It's still Mary Eileen. Okay.
• 2:36:05
  Speaker 3: You're the one telling me.
• 2:36:05
  Speaker 2: Okay. So it looks like I'm abandoning that show. Andrew says,
• 2:36:10
  Speaker 2: opinion on Chinatown. The movie.
• 2:36:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 2:36:15
  Speaker 1: It's been so many years. I don't even remember anything.
• 2:36:17
  Speaker 2: It's a well-made movie. Well-crafted. interesting story and plot of
• 2:36:25
  Speaker 2: course anti-capitalist anti-business anti-profit anti all of that um it's
• 2:36:32
  Speaker 2: very well done jack nicholson is brilliant in it it's
• 2:36:35
  Speaker 2: one of his it's it's you know that and uh
• 2:36:39
  Speaker 2: and um one fill of the cuckoo's nest have to
• 2:36:43
  Speaker 2: be his two best performances in as good as it
• 2:36:46
  Speaker 2: gets as good as it gets as good as it
• 2:36:48
  Speaker 2: gets he's good he's also good in um um You
• 2:36:54
  Speaker 2: can't handle the truth.
• 2:36:54
  Speaker 4: He's also good for a few good men where he's
• 2:36:56
  Speaker 4: not even the protagonist.
• 2:36:58
  Speaker 1: It's difficult to find a movie.
• 2:37:00
  Speaker 2: He's good. He's a great actor.
• 2:37:03
  Speaker 4: He's a gold candidate for me. Clearly a gold candidate.
• 2:37:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's really good. So I like Chinatown, but it's
• 2:37:11
  Speaker 2: very malevolent, very dark sense of life, and again, very anti-business,
• 2:37:17
  Speaker 2: very anti-profit motive.
• 2:37:21
  Speaker 1: Crazy, crazy fact.
• 2:37:23
  Speaker 4: Chinatown has a higher score in IMDB than as good
• 2:37:27
  Speaker 4: as it gets, yeah which shows you that democracy is.
• 2:37:30
  Speaker 1: A scam yeah yeah.
• 2:37:33
  Speaker 2: Um cook says the best spaghetti western is anything that
• 2:37:38
  Speaker 2: stars rick dalton.
• 2:37:42
  Speaker 3: Don't even get me started all right.
• 2:37:46
  Speaker 2: Uh lucinda lucinda I like how conscious and explicit the
• 2:37:52
  Speaker 2: villain in Serenity is when the ideals he strives for
• 2:37:57
  Speaker 2: will also entail his own destruction.
• 2:37:59
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 2:38:00
  Speaker 2: Yes. But there's a lot of, I like, I mean,
• 2:38:04
  Speaker 2: I haven't seen it in a long time. I should
• 2:38:05
  Speaker 2: watch it again. You know, somebody should actually pay us
• 2:38:08
  Speaker 2: to do a review of Firefly because I would love
• 2:38:11
  Speaker 2: watching the show again and watch Serenity the movie again.
• 2:38:14
  Speaker 2: afterwards because it would be fun because i really enjoyed
• 2:38:17
  Speaker 2: that show i've watched the movie two or three times
• 2:38:20
  Speaker 2: but it's been a long time since i watched it
• 2:38:22
  Speaker 2: uh so i can't remember all the details but yes
• 2:38:25
  Speaker 2: the villain is very good um very duty oriented and
• 2:38:30
  Speaker 2: then the um i it just it just the good
• 2:38:35
  Speaker 2: guys are good guys and the way it's dramatized the
• 2:38:39
  Speaker 2: way they dramatize is exciting and fun and interesting and,
• 2:38:46
  Speaker 2: you know, they kill off one of the good guys.
• 2:38:48
  Speaker 2: That I don't like, but, you know, I can't remember
• 2:38:51
  Speaker 2: why exactly.
• 2:38:52
  Speaker 1: Spoiler alert.
• 2:38:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I didn't say which one of the good guys. Lucinda,
• 2:38:57
  Speaker 2: I know Ben Bale also loves Firefly. We need to
• 2:39:00
  Speaker 2: get him on pressuring Nikos to watch it.
• 2:39:07
  Speaker 4: I've missed doing episodes with Ben, so we were a
• 2:39:10
  Speaker 4: good duo.
• 2:39:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sure you guys were. All right. That is it. No,
• 2:39:16
  Speaker 2: we didn't make it to three hours today.
• 2:39:17
  Speaker 1: It's okay.
• 2:39:19
  Speaker 2: But that is okay.
• 2:39:20
  Speaker 4: We expected this would be a two-hour episode, but we
• 2:39:22
  Speaker 4: didn't have that much to say about the movie.
• 2:39:24
  Speaker 2: But we got a lot of questions. Not as many dollars,
• 2:39:27
  Speaker 2: but a lot of questions. But we'll take it. All right, everybody.
• 2:39:32
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 2:39:32
  Speaker 2: Next week, Fauda. I'm excited. I'm excited. I hope you
• 2:39:36
  Speaker 2: are too. And don't forget to watch it. Don't forget
• 2:39:38
  Speaker 2: to watch it. And bring a lot of questions and
• 2:39:42
  Speaker 2: get ready. Hopefully Shahzad will watch the show so he
• 2:39:48
  Speaker 2: can see the reviews.
• 2:39:51
  Speaker 3: I will make sure to let him know.
• 2:39:53
  Speaker 4: And any follow-up question he has, he's on my Patreon.
• 2:39:56
  Speaker 4: So he has DM access. He can ask follow-up questions
• 2:39:59
  Speaker 4: on the reviews.
• 2:40:00
  Speaker 1: Excellent.
• 2:40:01
  Speaker 2: All right, guys.
• 2:40:02
  Speaker 3: Have a great rest of your weekend.
• 2:40:04
  Speaker 2: It's Saturday. There's still a whole Sunday before you. I
• 2:40:06
  Speaker 2: will be back tomorrow with an episode of Capitalism's Critics.
• 2:40:12
  Speaker 2: Me criticizing the critics. If you haven't seen my analysis
• 2:40:16
  Speaker 2: of Rubio's speech, you should check it out.
• 2:40:20
  Speaker 3: I think Nikos in the end agreed with me.
• 2:40:23
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes.
• 2:40:23
  Speaker 4: I was so carried away by the whole atmosphere. But
• 2:40:26
  Speaker 4: then when I watched the show, I was like, yeah.
• 2:40:28
  Speaker 2: I was too. I mean, I started off the show
• 2:40:30
  Speaker 2: by saying this might be the best speech and then
• 2:40:32
  Speaker 2: As I went through it, it was like, not really.
• 2:40:36
  Speaker 2: But yes, so check it out. As we said, I
• 2:40:43
  Speaker 2: also published a sub stack or Yoran AI published a
• 2:40:47
  Speaker 2: sub stack today. I'm thinking of actually having Yoran AI
• 2:40:52
  Speaker 2: start publishing these things, write these things in the third person.
• 2:40:57
  Speaker 3: So it's not pretending to be me.
• 2:40:58
  Speaker 2: It's just him. So let me know what you think
• 2:41:01
  Speaker 2: of that. you know, I might try that out. I
• 2:41:06
  Speaker 2: might have, you know, somebody recommended this to me, and
• 2:41:12
  Speaker 2: I think it might be a good idea.
• 2:41:13
  Speaker 3: Anyway, experimentation with.
• 2:41:15
  Speaker 2: AI continues, and I expect it to intensify. And yeah,
• 2:41:21
  Speaker 2: and if you have ideas for shows that Nikos and
• 2:41:24
  Speaker 2: I should do, in particular, if you'd like to sponsor
• 2:41:27
  Speaker 2: one of those shows, like, I think, I charge $ 1, 000
• 2:41:31
  Speaker 2: for a sponsored show, maybe $ 2, 000 for this.
• 2:41:36
  Speaker 3: But make us an offer.
• 2:41:37
  Speaker 1: $ 1, 000 is good and we split.
• 2:41:39
  Speaker 2: $ 1, 000 that we'll split for a show would be great.
• 2:41:43
  Speaker 2: So if you have a topic you'd like us to
• 2:41:45
  Speaker 2: do that doesn't require six months of study, then bring
• 2:41:50
  Speaker 2: it in. And we have to want to do the show.
• 2:41:52
  Speaker 2: We're not going to do a show even for $ 1, 000
• 2:41:53
  Speaker 2: if it means reading content. So, but if there are
• 2:42:00
  Speaker 2: historical episodes, you know, we're not philosophers, so don't ask us.
• 2:42:06
  Speaker 3: To study a philosopher.
• 2:42:09
  Speaker 2: I mean, movements, historical movements, historical episodes, you know, superficial
• 2:42:18
  Speaker 2: philosophies like the new left or the new right, where
• 2:42:24
  Speaker 2: it's not the originating philosopher.
• 2:42:27
  Speaker 3: That we're talking about, like Kant or Plato or Aristotle.
• 2:42:31
  Speaker 1: Or anarcho-communism.
• 2:42:32
  Speaker 2: Or anarcho-communism or anarcho-capitalism. All these things, you know, Rothbard
• 2:42:39
  Speaker 2: or Hoppe.
• 2:42:41
  Speaker 4: Any of these, we'd be happy to do. I have
• 2:42:42
  Speaker 4: a library with Rothbard and Hoppe. I need to put
• 2:42:45
  Speaker 4: it at use, guys.
• 2:42:46
  Speaker 2: There you go. These would be great episodes. So anybody
• 2:42:50
  Speaker 2: who wants to sponsor the show, a thousand bucks, and
• 2:42:53
  Speaker 2: we'll do whatever you want. You want us to do
• 2:42:54
  Speaker 2: a show on the Objectives Movement podcast, $ 1, 000 and we'll
• 2:42:57
  Speaker 2: do a show on the Objectives Movement. Maybe not. We'll see.
• 2:43:05
  Speaker 3: But yeah, being on.
• 2:43:08
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure there is an Objectives Movement, so that's
• 2:43:09
  Speaker 2: part of the problem. But anyway, Lucinda says, my dad
• 2:43:16
  Speaker 2: is an anarcho-communist and doesn't use toilet paper to save
• 2:43:20
  Speaker 2: the trees. I didn't really need to know that. Wait, wait, wait.
• 2:43:27
  Speaker 2: Nikos has something to show us when it comes to that.
• 2:43:31
  Speaker 1: I've got here.
• 2:43:33
  Speaker 2: He's got something.
• 2:43:34
  Speaker 1: All this.
• 2:43:39
  Speaker 1: It's just on anarcho-primitivism.
• 2:43:42
  Speaker 4: This is my anarcho-primitivist library. This will make such a fun,
• 2:43:45
  Speaker 4: but also disgusting episode. Like this book.
• 2:43:49
  Speaker 1: Should not be.
• 2:43:50
  Speaker 2: Well, it says he doesn't shower. He just goes to
• 2:43:53
  Speaker 2: the shower. Oh, he just goes to shower every time.
• 2:43:56
  Speaker 2: So he showers instead of uses toilet paper.
• 2:43:58
  Speaker 4: Well, I've heard the theory that this is more hygienic.
• 2:44:01
  Speaker 4: To be honest, I never understood exactly what they do,
• 2:44:04
  Speaker 4: but I'm open to be persuaded that it is hygienic.
• 2:44:08
  Speaker 2: But that's what you get a bidet for. That's why
• 2:44:12
  Speaker 2: in every home in Italy, for example, there's a bidet,
• 2:44:16
  Speaker 2: and the Japanese have these amazing toilets. If you've never
• 2:44:19
  Speaker 2: experienced a Japanese toilet, then.
• 2:44:22
  Speaker 1: Okay, no one needs to know this, and no one
• 2:44:24
  Speaker 1: asked for this. My house is so old, it has.
• 2:44:27
  Speaker 4: One of these things. I have no idea what they do.
• 2:44:30
  Speaker 4: I use it to put my laundry there. I don't
• 2:44:33
  Speaker 4: know what it is. It's like a second toilet there,
• 2:44:36
  Speaker 4: which I haven't figured out what it is yet.
• 2:44:40
  Speaker 2: In some places, that's a sign of progress, not a
• 2:44:42
  Speaker 2: sign of age. But yes. All right. For a different
• 2:44:48
  Speaker 2: show on another topic. I'll see you guys. Bye, everybody. Bye, Nikos. Bye-bye.
• 2:44:54
  Speaker 4: Bye, everyone.