Let's put Alex Rodriguez to work, we gave him the notepad, the pen, and then we give him a little homework, Frank Thomas. And we come up with A-Rod's American League Awards. So take us to the magic board, and why don't we start in the American League with the rookie of the year, Alex. What's your choice? Yeah, I have to go with none other. Miguel Andujar, this guy's been fantastic. He's hit 340 since the break, and he keeps getting better every month, both with power, with RBIs, and with clutch hitting. He has been the one staple with all the injuries and inconsistencies of his lineup. Miguel Andujar has played not only like a rookie of the year, but their most valuable player. I like this guy, Alex. He's been incredible for the Yankees with all the injuries this year, but I can't forget Glabor Torres. The first two months, it was all about Glabor Torres, rookie of the year. He got injured, but he's come back strong. If he has a big September, I'm going with Co-MVPs, the New York Yankees. Co-MVPs. No Shohei Ota, Shohei's your guy. We know Shohei Ota. You can't win it from the top. He's been injured too much this year. Not enough time on the field. All right, so we're going Andujar for the American League rookie of the year. Let's move on. American League manager of the year. I have a feeling this may be a no-brainer. Alex, what do you got? KB, I know you're starting football, but this is college football. None other than a hurricane, Miami hurricane. Alex Korra has been terrific. Not only is he a hurricane, but he's on pace with 110 games. He's been fantastic, and he's been better than expected. Talking to a lot of the players at the All-Star game, he said he makes us five to 10 games better, but here's the thing. He is the best communicator I've ever played for. From Mookie Betts, Chris Hale, they love this guy. And the best deal in baseball, the Red Sox are paying. Alex Korra, $800,000, may be the best deal in baseball. Alex Korra. Robbery to manage the Red Sox. That's unbelievable. There's a couple of guys worthy, but he's right. Alex Korra has definitely been the manager of the year. First year of manager, and has led the Boston Red Sox to the best record in baseball. Come on, Frank. We agree on everything. Anybody in the conversation? Melvin, Boone. They're there. Hinch? They're all there. Bottom line is Alex Korra has made a huge difference at Boston. By saying they're there, you mean like they're alive. They're all there. They're close. They're there. KB, to your point, Bob Melvin's my number two, but definitely my guys, Alex Korra. Fair. I mean, they're on a pace for maybe a historic season depending on the house of September goes for them. All right, why don't we go the American League, Si Young Award. This is an interesting couple of choices here. Again, so many choices, but I have to go with the lefty from Florida. Now playing with the Red Sox, Chris Hale. Look, he's 12 and four. He hasn't played in a month. He has not pitched in a month. He still has the American League best ERA. And here's the deal. The Red Sox is win it all or go home or bust. If this guy is not well, healthy and pitching at a high level, the Red Sox will not be world champions.  I've watched him pitch for so many years. He is due. Three straight American League all-star game starts. It's time for this guy to win a Si Young. I know Corey Klub was there stalking, but this year I gotta go with Chris Hale. I mean, no question. He's been out for a month, though. So no virulent or Carrasco, Kluber. Any of these guys? Once again, they're there. They're close. They're there. I like Chris Hale this year. It's his time. According to Frank Thomas, most major leaguers are breathing and they are, they are indeed there. All right, Alex, let's move on. Keep on going here. Who do you have for the American League MVP? Again, Kevin, so many great choices.  I see that one coming. This guy is, I'm a little biased. He was a shortstop at LSU. Number two pick came over to third because they have Carlos Correa already. This guy's been fantastic. Second most home run since June. He's playing stellar defense, but he is the energizer bunny. He has become very quickly the voice of a very enthusiastic clubhouse. I really like Alex Brightman. He has played himself into this MVP race, but I still gotta give it to Boston himself, JD Martinez. He has a chance to win the Triple Crown. He's been doing it every month for the Boston Red Sox. Best record in baseball. Mookie Best is close, but I'm gonna go with JD Martinez. Are you in the Red Sox Salle? Are you a consultant? Well, no, they've had the best season so far and they continue to do it in September. No DH has ever won an MVP, though. He's playing enough right field, I think. He's playing enough right field. I don't know, he's playing more DA. Mookie Best for me. He's been the star of this. Mookie Best is phenomenal. I hate this is going on. Because he's been the energizer for them. He's been the guy that leads the whole thing. He's on base and leads the league in average. He's scoring runs left and right. I think he's their energy for that team. Also, why do you have a doll in your hand? Well, listen, I'm jumping in the bandwagon. I'm the Alex Bregman. I wish I was his agent, but unfortunately I'm not. This guy's a fantastic player. He's a great ambassador for the game. And KB, I agree with everything you said. Here's what I will say. If a tie goes to the infielder, he is playing in the diamond, you know. He's a guy. Flip a coin. They're all great. He's been very clutched. The thing that's about Bregman that I'll say, which is a great point, when you think Astros most fans think, well, they think out too big. They think out great career. But he has been their best player. Yes, he has. He really has been the healthiest, which also helps. Alex Rodriguez, the man. Homework, well done. And let's not talk about money anymore, Alex.


What are your most pressing concerns about the political world in which you are living, Flavia? You can start. Maybe the first thing to refer also to the Tauberberg is that to me the big problem starts with the fact that Hans Kastop lives for seven years in a parallel world, right? So he's in this super-closed world with impulse, of course, impulses different ones. But these aspects, it seems much bigger than it should be and whatever. He's totally narrowed down to this parallel world. And I think if I relate this to today's world, I think a democracy cannot bear that many parallel worlds. The biggest problem, and I see it a lot among young people, is that they somehow just want their safe spaces. They don't want to, like they want to be mindful, they want to be, you know, self-fulfilled. It's totally decadent. It's because we are so well off in the Western societies and things are going so well. I don't bury it any longer. I think we're missing the true changes going on abroad and outside of our little nice, cute worlds. My biggest teacher actually in politics was my own mother, who was a communal politician for 16 years.  And we went there, tak, tak, tak, tak, and then she says, OK, talk to this guy, tak, and she was away, you know. And so we just had to get used to talk to any person from any background. And what I experience is that many, many people don't have this. They're not used to this anymore. And sometimes I really, I know, you know, but I feel ashamed how far away the elites got from just the normal average person. And if we speak that if we say that we want to live in a democracy together, we simply are accepting the fact that a Nobel Prize winner has the same voice as every other citizen, you know. And that's what is annoying me a lot. And that's what makes me fear a lot because we should really get out of the situation. I think it's true that I don't know if this is like, I don't want to speak about this as if this is only a contemporary problem. I think that this is a human problem. I think that politics has always been susceptible to conversion so that it's, it's not actually about living people. It's about signaling membership within a particular community. I think that has always been true. I think that technology has changed the way that manifests now. But I think that it's always been true that when people align themselves with their particular political ideology, it is less because they're conscious of the practical ramifications of like the policies that that are consistent with that ideology and more because their friends and their family or their teachers espouse that philosophy and they admire the people who say it and so they want to be part of that group.  So you have to go out and see what human life actually looks like, not just the life that you've been born into but every other kind of life. The only thing that I would disagree about is that I don't think only elites are guilty of this. I think that it's not like one reality is more real than another just because it's poorer or harder. I think that every subgroup is guilty of this same impulse because like I happen to be a member of the elite. I know I'm very lucky to have been privileged such that I don't feel politics in the same way that somebody who's born dirt poor on the street does. But they don't know what it is to live the life that I've lived just like I don't know what it is to live the life that they've lived. And I think it's dangerous to talk about somebody else's reality as if it's more real just because it's harder. Maybe it's because I'm born in a little country inside the biggest state. I have always feel more close with the little things. And I think I talk about intimacy in terms of art and I think in politics it has to be the same.  And no, the more important is the human scale, human measure and the diversity of voices. And democracy is a polyphony, never a unison. For me, I think it's like Mozart music. It's an absolutely fantasy in terms of melodic. The rhythm is always flexible. There are lots of ornamentation. That's democracy. It's not this path we are following to uniform blocks, I don't know. We haven't developed a language to talk about big communities. That's the problem. In the sense, of course, propaganda has always been accompanying people as long as the communities were here. Hate is rather a new way of expressing language. When we're talking about climate change, for instance, language is so incapable of describing what's happening. It's like you want to write something about climate change and then you ask yourself a question. Is it a catastrophe? No, catastrophe is something that happens once. After seven years, it's no longer a catastrophe. You have a crisis. Crisis is resolved within the borders of a state, like a great crisis, for instance. Then you've got a problem. It's not a problem. I might have a problem with a two-tight shirt, but it's not a problem. Where are the words to describe what's happening? I do feel that there is something about the way that politics is done, which turns people off Europe and turns young people off politics, which is the technocratic way that politics is carried out. I think maybe our generation had a kind of political awakening because of these massive life-changing moments like the financial crisis, 9-11, war in Iraq, so many different things. Before that, I think a lot of people were disengaged because of the way politics is done. I think the whole representative democratic system has to develop new mechanisms for actually engaging people. I think you find that when it does offer new mechanisms, people are interested. For example, if you look at the practice of citizens' conventions or citizens' assemblies, where they've been done, people come forward. They're interested. Tens of thousands of people volunteer. My experience in Tunisia as well is that I work with the most disengaged young people who don't even believe in democracy. I work with them for two years, and afterwards they stand for election in a democratic system. I think it's about creating spaces and about not seeing democracy as a product that can be consumed by citizens who are sitting there, but a dynamic system that has to constantly look for new ways to connect with people when things are changing, when we have technology and cultural change. We can't expect democratic institutions to remain untouched. They have to change the way they engage with citizens.


Good afternoon, welcome back to theCUBE. Lisa Martin here with Dave Nicholson. We are live in San Francisco at Moscone West for VMware Explorer 2022. We're excited to welcome a new CUBE guest to the program. Steve Brabo joins us, the SVP of Edge Technology at Lumen. Great to have you on the program. Thank you very much for having me, appreciate it. Welcome. Talk to us a little bit about, we've had several conversations with Lumen folks over the last day and a half. Talk to us a little bit about it from your perspective, the VMware relationship with Lumen. So it's actually, we have been partners for the last 20 years. When VMware was really cutting its teeth in the virtualized space, Lumen and one of its companies that had acquired through time was really a cutting edge user of VMware technologies. And as time has evolved and VMware's technologies have evolved, we have grown with VMware. So much of the software they write is embedded not only within our network, but on our Edge platforms and extended out to the hyperscalers as well as in the client-prem. So it's an ever-growing partnership and one that we're continually innovating and creating better outcomes for really the enterprise space. Talk about those enterprise customers and some of the outcomes that you're helping to deliver. What's the joint value prop that Lumen and VMware bring to the enterprise? So really stronger together, right? If you think about the strengths that Lumen has, it's really our network, we call that our central nervous system, our platform, okay, so all of our Edge technologies and compute capabilities that we're able to deploy in our Edge centers, data centers globally, as well as out to-prem. We lay the software technologies that VMware creates not only from a hyper-virtualized sense, but also through SASE, through security and also out to workspace one. So it's their entire suite, we're able to support it. So with those, we create amazing technology solutions to serve the enterprise, whether it's healthcare, whether it's manufacturing, retail space, the customers are aplenty in the use cases are endless. You talked about your history and at the foundation of what you do, this sort of idea of a central nervous system, the network. If we wanted to completely geek out, we could just talk about that for an hour. Sure we could. But we're not going to. We were talking just, before we came live, came on live about Lumen's philosophy and how you're taking that foundation, that network, that central nervous system, and you have a philosophy about what you want to achieve with it and the other things you layer on top of it. Tell us about that, because that's interesting. It's really all about furthering human progress with technology. We're very lucky that we have the global network that we do, but the workloads, the applications that make it really life go around in today's world, lives in forms and factors, a compute that hang off of the network. We're very lucky that we can bring that all together. So over the years, every enterprise has a different need. They're trying to solve a problem. We want to help them solve that problem. We bring our technology, our capabilities, our experience and experts to really cater to and be that partner that can build the entire stack for them to allow them to be very, very efficient in their place of competition. So I want to hear a concrete example of that in action, but I think it's interesting, not just from a what is happening on the outside perspective, but it's also very interesting culturally from an organizational perspective. When you wake up in the morning and you have that mindset that that's what your mission is, that's a lot different than waking up in the morning thinking I'm going to deploy 50 terabytes of storage. I'm going to install nine ports and yellow cables and blue cables in my switch, thinking you're toiling in obscurity. So everybody illumined then is waking up with this mission in mind, which makes the day a lot easier to get through when you're having to work hard, but give me a concrete example of that in motion. Sure, so it's actually, it's about those outcomes and those use cases, right?  And if you start talking about the cables and the computer, their eyes gloss over, but if I say to them, you know, remember when you were sick and it was during COVID and you couldn't go to the doctor, right? And we were able to pop open the computer and we were able to see a doctor on the screen and they had to stick your tongue out and do all the things. You got care and we were able to deliver that based on our platform, based on our network. We helped healthcare providers, you know, go remote to see patients as COVID was happening and people were going to the hospital. So that's just a real world scenario that we did for a very large network. When people were dealing with it, they needed to really expand horizontally to allow care providers to operate in different areas and we were able to hit it out of the park. That's a great explanation to your kids, go, wow, dad, that's awesome. Absolutely, absolutely. But then they're like, anything else? Like is there anything else cool? And then talk about sporting stadiums, lighting up, you know, a different venue where they go and they're able to, from their, you know, phone, order a soda, or a pretzel and with the different sensors from an IO2. Now you're talking. Yeah, I see perspective. They're like, dad, you guys did this? Yes, you know, so it resonates. And those use cases, if you think about the building blocks, right? Whether it's the medical scenario or a smart stadium, the building blocks are very similar, right? And we're lucky enough that you put those building blocks together in a prescriptive way for a specific outcome. You're able to play with strikes and you're able to get better scale and you're able to move fast because the technology industry we're in is, I mean, it's moving at light speeds. As the edge grows and expands and becomes more and more amorphous, how have your customer conversations changed as there's more demand for every company to become a data company, to be a security company? How have they kind of elevated up the stock to the C-suite? We've really had to just pivot to talking about that outcome, that that entity, that that enterprise is really trying to achieve. You know, if you think about the two examples, another one, it could be very cost-driven. It could be that we need to get to market in a much more rapid fashion at a global level. How can we stamp things out quickly? So you take those outcomes, show them how the technology is going to enable it, and then you can really open the door for the return, right? Did you get the cost savings? Yes, did you achieve that time to market for it could be seasonality, right? People don't have to pay for the full boat anymore. If, let's say they're at an online marketplace and it's huge around the seasons, right? There's going to be big peaks that they have there, right? We like to be able to have them burst and ebb and flow. So it's all about that outcome and getting to that, the technology pieces, you just put them together to accommodate. What is your go-to-market strategy look like? How do you engage with customers? You know, there are a finite number of seats, strategic seats at a customer table. Are you typically going in arm-in-arm with partners and alliances? What does that ecosystem look like? Do you have a direct sales force that engages customers? Tell me about how the whole thing works. So we have a direct sales force, okay?  So we have a great alliance partners as well. So that arm-in-arm absolutely happens where we are heavily connected already at C-Sweets. They're able to walk in and make those types of relationships and outcomes of reality. But we find that we're better with partners playing to their strengths with us, right? If we come in and show up and we have that complete stack, the software experts as well, our assets, our platform, our network, it's really a one-two punch, wrap with our service capabilities at a global level that it's unbeatable. So we show up to the very best of our abilities with our alliances and then with those more steep relationships where we've been there, where we have the relationships, there's more of a trust factor, but it's all about build and trust. And we got to show up appropriately to do that. So if it's unbeatable, why do customers choose Lumen? What's the value prop that you talk to customers about? So if you think about a COO or CIO or CTO and all of the different things you need to purchase to make outcomes of reality, whether it's network, whether it's compute, whether it's storage, whether it's software, right? Whether it's people, it becomes very easy if you have a partner that can do all of that for you and it's their assets, right? So we have those assets. We have those, you know, our employees are absolutely our greatest asset. In my opinion, at a global level and then we partner with the biggest software manufacturers like an AWS or like a VMware and we load it into our fabric and now we have literally the entire stack right there. It's a single hand of shake rather than I need to go to a network provider, you go to compute provider storage, firewall security, like you get that holistic solution approach. Makes it far easier and that's a huge differentiator. And you said AWS, you work with all. All the hyper scalers, like if you think about the cloud, I'll say the big three, right, AWS, Google and Microsoft, everything is using the cloud and the fact that we can connect to it in dynamic ways and extend that experience all the way out to our edge and on-prem and deliver the same experience, again, massive differentiator. So from your customer's point of view, you can be agnostic. Yes. You can say, well, Azure for this, AWS for that, maybe run VMware in both contexts. Interesting stat that was brought up to Lisa and I yesterday through the VCPP program, the VMware cloud provider program. If you aggregate all of that cloud stuff that's going on, that becomes the third or fourth largest cloud on Earth. So a lot of the messaging, a lot of the stuff they're talking about now has to do with that. So you, so for example, you could be involved in deploying that software-defined data center stack in a variety of hyperscale clouds where appropriate for people. 100% and whether it's in the hyperscalers or in their own data center, in one of our platforms, the biggest differentiators, it's going to be the same. You have that partner that can do it for you no matter where the venue is. So that's really the coming of hybrid cloud, very agnostic. But I always say it's a best venue, right? You have different applications, you're going to need different things. Build it to suit. And when you do that, okay, and you're not pushing one way, you're taking the requirements, you build trust. And when you build trust, you build long-lasting relationships with your clients. And that's what it's about. And you then make more great outcomes in reality. Right, that trust is absolutely critical. It's currency, it really is. Talk about you have a joint innovation lab with VMware. Talk a little bit about that. What is it all about? How long have you guys been doing it? What exciting things are coming from it? So we launched that about 18 months ago. Some amazing thinkers on our team and their team came together. And it's really to keep pace with the market, okay? So platforms and software evolve at a certain pace, right? And it's always speeding up. But creating use cases within that lab to solve a common core set of problems for maybe a specific vertical is really what it's intended to do. So when the software's ready, it's kind of an incubation engine that we're testing these use cases so we can then go deploy and begin solving immediately when market ready. So it puts us ahead of the game. It gives us those at bat. So we're very comfortable deploying and creating that muscle memory before you're going live in a client environment. And then you can show and scene is believing. So there are multiple, just I'll say different, IoT use cases that we're doing right now, 5G wireless, untethered headsets, things of that nature. You think about some of the VI and AI capabilities that are emerging, whether it's digital twinning, whether it's literally IoT sensors with packages, tracking those types of things. The use cases are endless. But the cool thing about it is you're testing those building blocks that I kind of keep referring to and you're expanding the portfolio of use cases that you can solve with them. And when you start to see patterns, you now have use cases that can solve many similar needs and outcomes. So it's a huge differentiator. We're lucky to have the teams, the collective teams together, making those outcomes a reality, some of the best technologies I've ever seen. So the joint innovation lab formed about 18 months ago during the pandemic. What was the compelling event or was that part of it? Or was it customer demand that caused you guys to go, you know what, let's come together and actually build a joint lab? We saw how fast things were moving. We wanted to say, okay, as something's getting ready to roll out, let's start touching it before it's market ready. So when it does, we can hit market and begin generating those outcomes immediately. And it took a little doing, but it came to place very quickly. Like mines, right? Thinking the right way. You get a good outcome. So, if you think about the way that a lot of consolidation has happened over recent years, you have large cloud vendors, including VMware, if you accept that definition of their partner program, spanning their software defined data center stack across clouds. And then on the other side of the chasm, you have the organizations that help people take the technology and move it into the realm of outcomes. Doing actual things with the shiny toys. It's one thing to develop the shiny toys. It's another thing to get value out of them. You guys are in that middle space, that critical space. So are the largest global systems integrators in the world. So how do you work with or are you strictly competitive with the alphabet soup of global systems integrators? Where do you fit into that space? So, again, go back to those, the assets and the capabilities that we have, right? Power users of software. We have a managing professional services organization and it's all about, I'll say, day zero, day one. Think of that consultative professional services approach to literally discover, define, design, analyze what that outcome is and then build and deploy. So migration, transition of workloads, all team it up for the day two type capabilities. Where we are different, those assets that we're building on are ours, okay? The excensures, the deloits, they're amazing, right? They're also sourcing network. They're sourcing compute, they're sourcing edge, they're sourcing things from other third providers. We are the power users of our capabilities. That makes us the best at it. So that integration, we have the instructions to put those Legos together better than anybody else. So does that mean that you are best targeting at a certain market segment where possibly would you seed some market to the largest of global systems integrators at some point? So there are certain things that they are amazing at, right? Think about some of the biggest ERM applications and things like that. We're power users and power employers of SAP. That's really the niche as high up that will go into the app stack, right? Doing the dynamics, doing different types of Oracle suites and things of that nature, let them go there, right? But enabling applications to live on our platforms and across our networks, we play to our strengths there. Leveraging software technologies like VMware, right? And the hyperscalers, that's really where, I don't want to say it's their hard boundaries, but again, it's boundaries where we have strength. We always want to play to our strengths and be honest, right? If you're honest about your capabilities, you will win the business that you were great at and that's what we do. Yeah, I think there's huge opportunity in that space, frankly. I think not too long ago, when asked, I think a lot of people would say, hmm, it's all going to be consolidation. There's going to be five standing over here, five standing over there, and they're going to work together and everyone else is going to have to go work for those people. What we've seen is organizations like Lumen, taking their historical capabilities and finding that space. Sure. It's really, really interesting to see that. There's one thing that I'll add to and the way of the world is automation and orchestration, okay, when you own the platforms, when you own the technologies that you're able to work with, you're able to evolve those capabilities and it stays your intellectual property, right? That intellectual property gives you amazing scale too. So that's one of the things that we've been lucky enough to do is we're continually working and involving that suite of orchestration and automation that layers on top of our platform, right? Our platform for amazing things. It's that automation orchestration, very key to making it go around. Speaking of amazing things, what are some of the things on the horizon for Lumen and VMware? What can customers look forward to in the coming months? So yesterday we actually just launched our Sassy offering. So that's amazing and a great job to the product teams for that. I gave one of your colleagues grief yesterday. He didn't appreciate it, I'm sure. But it's considered a party foul to let's remind people what Sassy stands for. So secure access service edge basically, all right? Software to find networking plus security, it really becomes a dynamic network, right? One that can live, breathe and grow and VMware has amazing technology that we are leveraging that's really the overlaid network for our network. And then we're also even scaling that out too to include carbon black security offerings as well as Workspace One. So those are additional evolutions. Some of the further enhancements with Tanzu and Kubernetes, right? Right in the portfolio as well. So as that capability expands, so does the efforts that we have with it. Fantastic. Awesome, Steve, thank you so much for joining Dave and me on the program. I really appreciate it. We're talking about Lumen and what's going on there, how you're working better together with VMware and the outcomes that you're delivering for customers. We appreciate your time. Thank you very much. Greatly appreciate it. Our pleasure. Thank you. For our guests and Dave Nicholson, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching theCUBE day two coverage of VMware Explorer 2022. Dave and I will be right back with our next guest. So don't change the channel.


I'm Darren Marlar and this is a Weird Darkness Bonus Bite. From all that's interesting, a live worm was removed from Australian woman's brain in World First Discovery by Austin Harvey. A woman in Australia was hospitalized after experiencing a litany of strange symptoms which started with stomach pain, coughing and night sweats and escalated to cognitive conditions, but no one expected that the source of these mystery symptoms would turn out to be a small, three-inch-long worm. It was definitely not what we were expecting. Everyone was shocked. Operating surgeon Dr. Hari Priyabandhi told the BBC. The 64-year-old woman had suffered from her internal symptoms for nearly three weeks before first entering the hospital in January 2021. At first she experienced abdominal pain, diarrhea and constant dry cough, a fever and night sweats. A brain scan later revealed that she had an atypical lesion within the right frontal lobe of the brain. Still, the true case of her symptoms remained elusive and it wouldn't be until June 2022 after the woman's symptoms had evolved to include forgetfulness and depression that Bondi would make a startling discovery. The woman had been referred to Canberra Hospital where she was given an MRI that revealed abnormalities in the brain requiring surgery. But as Bondi's colleague, infectious disease physician Dr. Sanjaya Sinaniak told The Guardian, the neurosurgeon certainly didn't go in there thinking they would find a wriggling worm. This was a once-in-a-career finding. No one was expecting to find that. Bondi said the operation had only just started when she felt something odd in the part of the brain that showed up strangely in the scans. I thought, gosh, that feels funny. You couldn't see anything more abnormal, Bondi said, and then I was able to really feel something and I took my tweezers and I pulled it out and I thought, gosh, what is that? It's moving. Bondi said the worm was happily moving quite vigorously outside the brain. Unsure of what to do with this new and strange discovery, Bondi consulted Sinaniak. We just went for the textbooks looking up all the different types of roundworm that could cause neurological invasion and disease, Sinaniak said. Unfortunately, the resources at their disposal yielded no fruitful results, and they were forced to contact outside experts. Canberra is a small place, so we sent the worm, which was still alive, straight to the laboratory of a CSIRO scientist who is very experienced with parasites, Sinaniak said. He just looked at it and said, oh my goodness, this is Ophadescarus robertsi. This robertsi is a relatively common roundworm found in carpet pythons, non-venomous snakes located across Australia, but the Canberra hospital patient is the first time this worm has been seen in a human. Experts believe that the woman became an accidental host after collecting warrigal greens, a type of native grass from a lakeside near her home to use for cooking. Carpet pythons also inhabit that area, and the leading hypothesis among experts is that a python shed the parasite via its feces into the grass. So despite no contact with the python itself, the woman may have become infected with the parasite when she touched the grass, either from later transferring it to other food or from eating the grass itself. Sinaniak noted the treatment was difficult for the patient as even after the worm in her brain was removed, they had to treat her for any other parasite larva that could be in her system. However, some medications that kill off larvae can also cause inflammation, which can harm organs such as the brain. That poor patient she was so courageous and wonderful, Sinaniak said, you don't want to be the first patient in the world with a roundworm found in pythons and we really take our hats off to her, she's been wonderful. Sinaniak added that the patient is recovering well and is still being regularly monitored. Doctors are also working to determine if a pre-existing condition that caused the woman to be immunocompromised could have made it easier for the larva to get a foothold. The strange case also adds to an already growing and concerning trend of infections spreading from animals to humans. There have been about 30 new infections in the world in the last 30 years, Sinaniak said. Of the emerging infections globally, about 75% are zoonotic, meaning there has been transmission from the animal world to the human world. This includes coronaviruses. Fortunately, this specific infection is not transmittable between people, Sinaniak said, so there is no concern that it will turn into a pandemic like COVID-19 or Ebola. That said, carpet pythons and the parasite that attaches to them are found in other parts of the globe, meaning the world could see this happen again sooner rather than later.


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All right. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me, but more importantly, thank you to the Berkeley Forum for Existing. I mean, the idea of having a forum at any university today that is basically for dialogue and debates and a wide variety of points of view is fantastic. I mean, I always thought universities were exactly that, but it turns out maybe universities have to overlay them with an entity that allows for real dialogue. So there's nothing more important in the world which we live in free speech. So anything that furthers a dialogue is good. So congratulations to students for that. So we're here to talk about the morality of capitalism. And to do that, we have to really talk about two things. We have to talk about morality and we have to talk about capitalism. And I think in both, in both regards, I'm going to have a relatively controversial radical point of view about what morality constitutes and even in terms of what capitalism constitutes. We all think we know what capitalism is, but like most of the terms it turns out we use in day-to-day life, it's where do we actually take the time to actually define them and think them through and figure out what do they really mean because people use terms all the time and we think we know what we're talking about and a lot of times we don't. So definition is really important. So first, what is moral? Because that is determined whether capitalism is moral or not. What is moral? What is good? What is what? What is just? And in my view, morality or the moral is that which enhances individual human life. That which is good for the individual. That which makes possible the thriving, the success, the happiness, the prosperity of individual human beings is the good. That which destroys human life. That which threatens ability to prosper, to succeed, to pursue our values, to be happy is evil, is bad. And what is it that makes it possible for human beings to be successful? What is it that human beings need to do in order to achieve their values? Well, we know that to even define what their values should be. What is it that makes us human? What is it that differentiates us from every other animal species out there? Because, you know, maybe the most important thing that differentiates us is other animals are programmed instantially, genetically in their DNA to know what's good for them. There's no morality for dogs. There's no morality for cows. They know what's right. They know what's good. It's pre-programmed. It's in their DNA. They don't have a choice about which path to pursue. They do what they're programmed to do. Human beings are different. We have choices. We're not pre-programmed to a particular direction. We have to decide what values to pursue, what kind of life to live. So what is it, if I'm going to make those choices, if I'm going to lead a successful life as a human being, what is it that makes us human? What is it that makes it possible for us to make those choices?  Now what does food come from? Don't say the supermarket. Excuse me, that's the answer. What does food come from? What does food come from? How do we get food? Anybody here have a gene for agriculture?  They go straight and they get it.  They do it. Where do we get our food from? What's that? From farmers. How do they know how to make the food? Because I still don't know. Yeah, they have to figure it out. Somebody has to figure it out. Right? Somebody has to discover. Discover that if you drop a seed into the ground and you water it, something will go down. We all know that from age three, because somebody told us. But that truth is something some genius probably 20,000 years ago discovered. We probably burned him at the stake. Because that's what we do to geniuses who discover new stuff that we're used to. And that wasn't enough because they have to turn that into agriculture. How do you turn that into agriculture? Well, now you need an entrepreneur who is going to turn that scientific knowledge into something that is actually useful for human beings, which is what entrepreneurs typically do. And discover agriculture. But all of that is a discovery. Even something simple like hunting is impossible for us. I mean, look at you.  You're weak. You're slow. You have no claws. You have no fangs. I mean, try running down a bison and biting into it. And yet I had a bison both before lunch. How do we do that? Well, we have to develop tools and weapons and strategies. And we hunt. But it's all a product of our mind. So it makes human beings unique. What makes it possible for human beings to survive and to thrive is the use of our mind. It's great to me. Now, from Silicon Valley, where you see that every single day. Any innovation, any progress, any success is a product of human reason. It's a product of human thinking. What is the enemy of reason and thinking? What is the thing that shuts down the human mind? Of course. Violence, coercion, force. But you can't think about that. Of a certain area in life. Because if you do, or if you at least express yourself about it, I'm going to shoot you, or I'm going to put you in jail, take Galileo, right? He comes up with this crazy idea, right, that the Earth acts as those around the Sun, and not the Sun around the Earth. And they put him in house arrest. What incentive does that provide all the other people looking to innovate, to discover new ideas, to think about new stuff? I don't want to go to jail. I don't want to be shut down. And Galileo was lucky. People before Galileo were put into the stake. That was the preferred method. Luckily, by the time Galileo came about, that wasn't in fashion anymore. The human mind needs freedom. Now, what is freedom? Freedom is another one of the words that we talk about a lot, but it's never really clearly defined. What's freedom? When we say freedom, what do we mean? The absence, how we define it is the absence of coercion, the absence of force, the absence of authority dictating to you what you should and shouldn't do. So freedom is the absence of coercion. What the mind needs, what human reason, what human rationale you need to know what to flourish, what to be successful is to be free from the authority whether the authority is the state, the church, whoever can wield power over you and dictate what you can and cannot think. That needs to be banned. That needs to be out. That's what freedom means, and that's what the human mind requires. So morality is that which is good for human life. Reason is what's necessary to succeed as a human being. Reason is good for reason to fully flourish, for reason to be fully efficacious. The mind must be free, free from coercion, free from force, free from authority. But when we come together with other people in a society, we're exposed to force. We're exposed to courage. We're exposed to people who want or pretend that they have authority over us who tell us what we can think and what we can't think, what we can do and what we can't do. We need a mechanism to protect us from those people. And to me that's what the role of government is. The role of government is to protect us from those who wield force, and coercion, and authority against us who would limit the scope of our ability to live, to think, and to act on our thoughts. And when you limit government to that, a government that does that better protects us from those who use force against us. That's capitalism.  Capitalism is a system of inalienable rights. Rights, what do rights mean? Another one of those words. Rights are the, of freedoms, freedoms of action. Rights say you're not allowed to correspond to another. That's what rights say. So the right to life is the right to live your life as you see fit pursuing the values necessary for your survival without coercion. That's what the right to life means. Capitalism is a system of inalienable rights to write the right to life, liberty, property, and the preservatives. That's the essential characteristic of capitalism. It necessitates private property, and the role of the government is only to protect that private property and to protect our individual rights. In other words, our individual freedoms. Now, as you look at the history, the history of capitalism, what you see is, 250 years ago, how many people were, like, extremely poor? The U.N. and the United Nations defined extreme poverty. I think it's $3 a day or less. $3 a day or less. How many people in the world as a percentage do you think 250 years ago, before the declaration of independence, before we asserted this right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? How many people were poor, extremely poor? 99. And 98, somewhere between 95% to 98%. Almost everybody. Almost everybody lived up to $3 a day or less. Think about what that would mean to your life. Now, not only $3 a day or less. No electricity, no running water, and the most bizarre thing of all, no internet. That's what life was, right? $3 a day or less, you basically grew the food that you ate with no surplus. That was life. And it's been life for 100,000 years. And if you look at it, economists have looked, and estimated, you can't really do this accurately, but estimated, what was the income of a human being during the hunter-gatherer period and the early parts of agricultural civilization? It's basically somewhere between a dollar to $3 a day, and it stayed that way for 300,000, for 100,000 years. You were born with the same stuff you died with. Your children were born with the same stuff they died with. And they died young. What was life expectancy? In 1776, what was life expectancy in the West relatively advanced? What was life expectancy? Anybody? So, 35, probably 39 in the West, some places it was lower, but in the 30s, right, I'd be dead. You guys are middle-aged already.  Up until about 1776 or there about. Up until this idea of human liberty and human freedom became popular. And when that idea became popular, when the government was relegated from kings and tribal leaders who dictated every aspect of our lives, when suddenly government was limited to just protecting our freedoms, protecting us from coercion. Now, granted, they didn't do a very consistent job at that, right? But to the extent that they did it, human well-being took off, exploded. We went from $3 a day to 100 times more today. Life expectancy, you guys are going to live well into your 90s. Maybe into triple digits. And it's not really 100 times more because if you think about the value of electricity, you can't. We don't have any way to measure that in dollar terms. Or the value of the internet. Or the value of running water. The value of sewage. So our lives are thousands of times better than they were before the capitalism. And indeed, I can't prove this because I'm going to go four minutes. But over the last, I'm sure some of this will come up, over the last 300 years, over the last 300 years, any society, no matter where, no matter who, that if practice capitalism just a little bit has done well, to the extent that you practice capitalism, to the extent that markets are free, to the extent that you leave people free to think and to act based on their thoughts, to that extent, wealth is created, people are prosperous, people are successful, life expectancy increases. And to the extent that you limit that, to the extent that you constrain people's ability to act and to think for themselves, to pursue their own values based on their own judgment, to that extent, people are poor, struggle, and often die. You've got a great illustration right now of what happens when you restrict people's freedoms in Venezuela where once again, as if we need more illustrations of this in history, when you collectivize something like farming and you abandon the idea of property rights, you abandon the idea of individual property rights, what happens? When you collectivize farming, people starve. That was true of Ukraine in the 1930s, it was true of China in the 1960s, and it's true of Venezuela in 2010. Collectives don't produce food. Without private property, there is no food production. So to the extent that we limit freedom, to the extent that we limit capitalism, to the extent that we reduce people's ability to produce what they want with their own means, with their own abilities, we get death, starvation, and poverty. And yet, particularly for your generation, socialism, which is in many respects the opposite of capitalism, is super popular these days. It's like everybody wants to starve. It's not funny, it's true. Because that's what you get, every country, every place in the world that has tried collectivization of anything, that has tried socialism to any extent. You get one extreme, you get the closer you get to socialism, the closer you get to starvation, the closer you get to capitalism, the closer you get to prosperity, and somehow we all want to starve because we all want to move in that direction towards socialism. And I think the reason for that is that we all grow up with a model code that is consistent with socialism. We're all taught that morality is something different than the way I described it. We're all taught, taught, that the fundamentally morality ethics is about serving others. It's about sacrifice. It's about being selfless. And socialism, socialism is very selfless. Everybody's expected to serve the community and not think of themselves. Sacrifice, socialism is great with sacrifice. Sacrifice, they're able to the need that's the principle of socialism. Our model code is not based on what's good for the individual human being because the individual doesn't matter. What matters are others. We all grow up with the idea of altruism, otherism, the sanctity, the virtue of other people, not oneself. Indeed many philosophers have told us that to the extent that you think about yourself and the benefit you will get from helping others to that extent you are not being model. Now, Iron Man challenges that. Iron Man rejects that. And I would encourage you all to read Iron Man and to read her books to kind of expand your thinking when it comes to ethics among many things. But Iron Man's views of ethics is what I started with. Whereas model is what is good for you as an individual to flourish and succeed in life. The purpose of morality is to give you a toolkit, a guidebook to being successful in life, to flourishing and advancing your own life. And if we all just care about our own life making our lives the best that they could be without sacrificing other people but not expecting other people, not expecting demanding or wanting other people to sacrifice to you either but just living your life fully based on your reason, based on your mind. If we all believed that then we wouldn't want Mother Government telling us what we can eat and what we can drink and what we can do and what we can do, how much we pay our employees what businesses we can start, what businesses we can't start who should be bailed out or shouldn't be bailed out we wouldn't want to make those decisions for ourselves. That's what capitalism requires at the end of the day. It requires immorality of individualism. It requires a morality a pursuit of your own happiness instead of a morality of sacrifice and deprivation. So to me the challenge in the world today and the whole challenge between capitalism and socialism or whatever you want to characterize, to conceptualize the struggles that we face politically, economically, socially are not about politics they're not about economic knowledge I mean the capitalist side won the economic knowledge battle a long time ago they're about ethics they're about the purpose of life they're about what is right and what is wrong what is good and what is evil and if you get the answers to those questions wrong then everything else is wrong you can't have good politics, you can't have good economics you certainly can't have a good society so I encourage you to rethink the most important issue to rethink is morality is what is your life about what is the purpose of your life economics, politics social fear will flow not the other way around Thank you all Thank you Mr. Brooks for that address at this point in the evening I'd like to invite my first student Maier in the evening, Shana Zuber of the stage Thank you so much for joining us It's a pleasure to have you Thank you, thanks for doing this Yeah, of course it's what we're here for Good So I want to start where you left off which is this conflict between a morality system premised on the virtue of selfishness as opposed to one premise on the idea of the collective What philosophically do you think makes this sort of objectivist morality system preferable to the one that you think underlies other economic systems? Well I think you start with a very basic simple question those who advocate that you should live for other people need to answer one question which is why Why should I live for other people? Why are other people more important than me? I think philosophically what underlies a morality of self-interest and selfishness is the idea that we have one life the idea that we're here that each one of us is an individual we can't eat for you and I can't think for you and I can't live for you I can live for myself though I can eat for myself and I can think for myself so we are metaphysically individuals and therefore the fundamental question that an individual faces is not what should I do to other people that's a question that comes late in philosophy the fundamental question that an individual faces is how do I live? because there's an option to live what's that? death so the fundamental alternative that every one of us faces in every decision we make in life is the decision between survival or not survival life or death to be or not to be a Shakespeare always gets to the real crux of the matter life is about to be or not to be and once you decide to be once you decide to live then the big question is how? and to me and this goes back really to the way Aristotle thought of ethics ethics is about answering that question for us how should we live? what are the principles? what are the principles that lead to life? we know what death requires but some of us know that some of us don't know it and therefore we live in that direction unconsciously or not on purpose but what are the principles that actually lead to successive life? that actually lead to survival survival as a human being and to me ethics as it should be is a science to discover the principles that lead to a good life and other people playing in that obviously it's important to be in a society and to engage with other people so why is there life not more important than mine? isn't the fundamental alternative that I face metaphysical alternative is my survival or not and I need to figure out how to survive and then how other people playing into my survival is an important issue but it's not the primary issue well one source that throughout the ages many people have turned to for meaning and for answering that question is religion and traditionally objective and takes a stare at against religion but some current streams see Justin that there might be a place for more spiritually oriented understandings of religion do you think there can be a place for faith within the tenets of objectiveism? no make that easy objectiveism is about reason objectiveism holds that the human means of survival the basic means of survival of human beings is reason faith is the opposite of reason faith is the negation of reason it says in this realm however you want to classify this realm in this realm facts don't matter evidence doesn't matter reality doesn't matter what matters is my feelings what somebody told me so I don't believe objectiveism doesn't believe any realm of human existence we should negate reason life is about figuring out the facts figuring out the truth and using one's reason to understand the world around us to the extent that one uses faith one is choosing to go against one's own survival so faith in my view is an anti is anti-human it's anti-life and it's bad for you it doesn't negate spirituality and I want to take that term away from the religion because I don't like the fact that they monopolize it the spirit is something that relates to consciousness and we're all conscious so it's non-material there are lots of things that are non-material emotions are non-material certainly when you listen to a beautiful piece of music that's a spiritual experience it's not a material experience so I don't think spirituality per se is an exclusive realm of religion or certainly not the exclusive realm of faith one can have spiritual values that are based on reason that are based on facts that are based on nature that don't relate to religion among the changes with respect to religion and some of these criticisms you made here you've also criticized the misuse of Iran's virtue of selfishness by people in Silicon Valley misunderstanding to be on what do you believe are the biggest misconceptions today about Iran's philosophy? well I think this is yourself she's going to spot me the biggest and most important one people think that when I'm talking about selfishness objectives and talk about selfishness it means do whatever you want whatever you feel like and it's the exact opposite Objectivism is about not doing what it feels like because often our feelings are not reality based are not fact based most of the time when you get into trouble and you think about it afterwards you realize you got into trouble because you acted on emotion not without thinking Objectivism holds that selfishness means using your mind in pursuit of your values thinking if you had to boil down Iran's ethics into one word it would be think think, think, think figure it out what should I do? my emotion tells me that cocaine is going to give me a really good hype but I know if I think about it I know the damage it can do I think everybody knows Bernie Madoff remember Bernie Madoff stole 63 billion dollars Bernie didn't sit down one day and say you know I want a lot of money so when I'm going to do it let me figure this out I want to live a good life, I want to be happy I want to live the best life that I can be as a human being so I'm going to steal money from my best friends that's how I'm going to do it right? crooks almost never do that they don't think it's part of the essence of criminals because they never think what did Bernie do? he sold piles of money and he felt I should have that and he took it he didn't think it through the consequences it would have on his life he didn't think through what kind of life he was going to lead as a consequence almost no crook ever does because if they did they'd discover what a miserable pathetic life they would have Bernie says today that he's happier in jail than he was before he was caught because just think about lying to your wife to your kids to all your friends to everybody and constantly having to worry about you got your life straight that you're not going to be caught not by the police because the police is so incompetent they never got Bernie made up but by your kids that's who ultimately got Bernie his son is the one who found out and schooled your life so the idea of selfishness guided by your mind to think it through I always tell people if you want to be selfish and I definitely encourage it it's hard work because it's hard work to figure out what's good for you what's really good for me over the span of a lifetime I don't know exactly what's going to happen tomorrow but I have to think what kind of principles should I follow that are going to make my life the best life that it can be for the next we're going to live 40 years for the next 40 years that's hard but that's the challenge of living it's figuring out what values you should pursue what principles should guide your life over a lifespan that's the challenge that's philosophy that's objectivism it's not about emotions I don't want to denigrate emotions but emotions are not tools of cognition these are making decisions emotions are the way we experience life they're fantastic I'm a passionate guy but I don't use my emotions to make decisions I always step back from them and think it through the example of Bernie Madoff I think is something that's prompted actually a lot of feelings that might be contrary to objectivism a lot of people have responded to those sorts of instances with a desire for regulation and in the past you've argued that regulation in things like the financial sector actually leads to cheating or more fraud what do you see as the mechanism by which increased regulation leads to cheating sure, well first let me say let me answer a slightly different question and I'll get back to this increased regulations makes it very difficult to catch cooks increased regulations increased regulation makes it very difficult to catch cooks for example Bernie Madoff so Bernie Madoff was doing this for a long time the SEC never caught it the regulators never caught it why? why did the SEC get it? indeed twice the SEC got a big report from a hedge fund manager who basically detailed exactly what Bernie Madoff was doing and why was fraud and why this was bad the SEC looked at it and investigated a little bit and ignored it in the end couldn't catch it why? because the SEC is so busy with people who are not cooks I mean there's so many regulations in finance there's so many things for the SEC to do who has time for cooks I mean I have to it's part of what I do I have a hedge fund I have to file 13Ds and I have compliance and the SEC will once in a while will ask for all of my emails and come into my office and check my filing system and I have investors who are 100 times smarter than any person at the SEC but somehow these investors need protection from me by these bureaucrats so the bureaucrats come in and they do all the stuff that's already done much better than the SEC ever could and they replicate it and they're busy looking at me and checking that I'm following the letter of the law rather than looking for Bernie Madoff I don't steal money Bernie Madoff did so leave me alone so regulations make governments so busy with the innocence that they never have a chance I mean one of the problems with regulations is that to some extent they make us all cooks so most regulations are written in such bizarre language most regulations are written in such a way that it's almost impossible to figure out exactly what they mean indeed regulatory agencies often distribute explanations like to have the regulations and then not have explanations and even administration might explain the regulations a little differently and after time you don't know if you're in accordance with the regulations or if you're not in accordance with the regulations but what the regulations do is they encourage people who know how to manipulate the system to enter the system they encourage the people who can get who can figure out how to take advantage of the regulations to enter those regulations again I'll give you this example I don't know you're too young S&L crisis, saving and loans crisis I think about the financial crisis 2008 I mean yeah you're too young for that as well I know but it's a wonderful reason so think about it this way if someone comes to a bunch of bankers and says the regulation is such that when you make money you get to keep it when you lose money will value up it literally is the regulation too big to fail which is government policy since 1984 so on the upside it's all yours on the downside will value up do you think what kind of person likes that what kind of person is attracted to an environment in which they can win on the upside and they guarantee you don't adopt it it's a certain mentality it's a certain type of person like Silicon Valley kids a lot of entrepreneurs you know failure is part of life it's not a bad thing and you don't want that guarantee you want to be living on the edge you want to have that thrill of it could go either way you want to benefit on the upside but you also want realistically you want to have reality judge you on the downside but there are certain people who like that government guarantee cronies schmoozes high risk takers sometimes crooks they used SNL prices because SNL prices gave people the same kind of incentive and you got a bunch of crooks that did the industry a bunch of new people came into the industry as soon as these incentives were put in place and they came and exploited this advantage they took on huge amounts of risk tried to pocket as much money in their pocket as quickly as possible and it all collapsed they walked away and the government bailed everybody out and to some extent that happened during the financial crisis if you were running a big bank on the upside everything was fine on the downside you could just walk away all the CEOs of the big banks walked away failed banks so regulations create bad incentives they create a motivation for particular types of people to enter the industry who can take advantage of these regulations and they make it almost impossible to capture anybody because there's so many regulations it's impossible to figure out who's the cook and who's the good guy and I'd say there are other regulations that are just in place to give politicians and bureaucrats power over us because we're always in violation of them I mean how many people in this room well I don't know you're too young for this but how many people in this room who file their own taxes actually know the tax code and my accountant doesn't really know the tax code I mean I'm sure I'm in violation of some provision of the tax code I'm sure all of you are it's so complex it's such a mess but it's a proper salary because they could always audit you and they'll always find something and they'll always go after you in the church right they want you to sin because then they can use guilt against you like if you go to the church and say I don't sin, I'm perfect then they have nothing on you they can't control you they need you to sin this is why original sin is such an important doctrine because original sin you don't even have to sin now you're sinful by your very existence so I got you you're guilty and you need me I told you they want you to violate the laws they want you to violate the regulations because if you do, they can control you so for the sake of time this is going to be my last question before we turn it over to the audience I want to go a little bit to foreign policy actually you previously criticized the doctrine of neoconservatism as failing to appropriately uphold the interests of American citizens given these perceived failures of neoconservatism what do you believe the underlying principles of American foreign policy should be well America first but please don't confuse that with Donald Trump because he's awful and he wouldn't know what America is and he certainly doesn't know what a place he is first would be it basically would be a foreign policy that's said that we do not intervene in other countries unless there's clearly an American interest at stake but it has to be a real interest because there's a whole school of foreign policy called the realists who define interests in such broad terms that they basically are just as interventionist as the neoconservatists so I don't believe the United States so again I believe that the goal of the American government so let's go with the fundamental the goal of the American government is to protect the lives and property of American citizens it should protect you individually foreign policy is that as with regard to other nations with regard to agents that are outside the United States so the foreign policy of the United States should be focused only on the protection of the lives and property of Americans vis-a-vis other countries vis-a-vis terrorists vis-a-vis people who are outside of the United States so our job is not to be the policeman of the world our job is not to solve every problem in the world, not to negotiate every peace treaty in the world, not to protect Europe not to protect South Korea not to protect Japan but to protect the lives and property of American citizens when the lives and property of American citizens are threatened then we need to protect them whether it's through diplomacy or whether it's through the use of our military but that's it I don't believe we should be a NATO because I don't think NATO protects the lives and property of Americans now, would any one of you volunteer to go and risk your life for the sake of Estonia but you're bound to maybe not you, maybe your kids, but somebody because if Russia invades Estonia tomorrow the United States is officially in war with Russia now, I like Estonia Estonia is great and I can't stand Russia Russia is terrible okay but would I send my kid to die in a war for the liberation of Estonia and my answer is no and if you can't look your son in the eye or daughter in the eye and say this is a war you should go fight then how did you send somebody else's child to go fight in the war so it has to be a real interest but if they're invading the United States they're flying airplanes into American buildings they're killing Americans and American soldiers all of the seas then there is a reason for American interval but short of that short of actually threatening the lives and property of Americans America should stay home we now have troops that are thinking 120 different countries there's no American interest that dictates 120 different countries self interest self interest what's good for us as Americans as individual Americans and again think about the world government it's to protect us that's it it's not to protect Israelis it's not to protect anybody it's to protect Americans if there was there was a big enemy out there like in World War II there were alliances to go and fight that big enemy because there's a threat to you but there is no enemy of that proportion in the world today that America America has the mightiest military force in human history in all of human history we don't have to protect the Europeans because then the Europeans can protect us we can protect ourselves we don't need allies to protect ourselves I think we waste huge amounts of resources of money, effort, time and human life in order to fight wars that are not in our self interest starting with Korea to Vietnam to pretty almost everywhere we fought since World War II there's been a war that was not fundamentally essentially in America's self interest thank you so much for answering my questions I now like to open it up to the audience if you have a question please raise your hand to all call on you how did altruism become so dominant in so many cultures and was it always so prevalent so how did altruism become so dominant in so many cultures it's a great question let me start with it hasn't always been dominant I think it has been pretty dominant in human history I think the one exception in terms of a culture that has since out anti altruism and didn't have altruism at all was Greece, ancient Greece ancient Greece is basically driven by a morality of individual human flourishing and figuring out what does it take to live the good life whether it's Plato or Aristotle or Socrates they're trying to figure it out they don't always get their answers white in my view or my man's view but that's the struggle it's always about how to take the individual and allow the individual to live the best life they can live and you could argue that Rome wasn't particularly altruistic but with those exceptions certainly since the rise of Christianity but let's go before Christianity why is altruism so dominant for Christianity I think it's dominant because there are political interests in altruism so we're in a tribe the last thing a tribal leader wants is for each individual to think for themselves and to act for themselves and to pursue their own values because then they might discover they don't need a leader they might discover that they can cope themselves and maybe they can choose their own leader rather than having a leader imposed on them so the tribal leader always has an incentive to tell you and this is true of every tribal leader every dictator, every authoritarian human history as an incentive to tell you don't live for yourself it's wrong to live for yourself and we'll get how we get away with that in a second don't live for yourself you must live for the tribe or you must live for the parliamentarian or you must live for the Aryan race or you must live for God but don't live for yourself and how do we know what the parliamentarian needs how do we know what the Aryan race needs how do we know what the tribe needs I'll tell you I, the tribe leader, will tell you that's what you need, because I'm the one who channels the spirit of the tribe, the spirit of the polytheism, the spirit of all your people, the spirit of God, and I will tell you what it needs. And therefore, just do what I tell you, be prepared to sacrifice for the tribe, and by the way, if you don't believe me, here's the witch doctor, and the witch doctor will tell you that I speak for the spirit world. I speak for the gods, and your job in life is to sacrifice. Your job is life is to live to the group, and this is how I control you. It goes back to what I said about religion. Religion is about control. It's about giving you some basic principles to live by, but also to control you. So there's always been a sense of, and particularly, people have always been ignorant of how to live, right? They've always been, we've always needed principles. And before the discovery of logic, before the discovery of reason, before the discovery of what it is that we do as human beings, we did it without knowing what it was. And the real discovery of all these things is ancient Greece. It's the first Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, basically an old Greek philosophy. But before that, we still needed principles. We still needed ideas on how to live. We looked to authorities to tell us what they were. And that's why religion was so prevalent. That's why tribal leaders and kings and queens were so relevant. And then Greece comes about and challenges all that. Unfortunately, that doesn't survive for very long, and I don't know the historical reasons why Greece doesn't survive. But then you see a rise of the kind of universalist religion, which is based on from its foundation early on. It's based on the idea of sacrifice.  So you're guilty. He's pure. That's the model in Jordan Peterson's term. He's the superhero. And you must live up to that. And now I have you. I have control over you. And it's no accident that Christianity really becomes a dominant religion when. When does Christianity really coalesce around one doctrine and around a clear methodology and then becomes a dominant religion in the world? Under the Romans with Constantine. He gets committee. He says, we need one doctrine. We can't have all these little Christian sects fighting over what's true and what's not. I want one doctrine. And they come back with one doctrine.  And then onward we march because what the Romans realized at that point in the decline of their civilization is that they needed the witch doctor in order to rule. And Christianity served as the witch doctor. And altruism is the mechanism of the witch doctor to control our spirits, to control our behavior. And they do it through guilt. They do it through the fact that they can tell us what the truth is. They, particularly Catholicism, they get reveal truth. And that gets conveyed to us through a pope or through a philosopher king. And it's no accident that Christianity is very neoplatonic. So Catholicism originally was very neoplatonic. I think there's a little talk for one more question. I think so. Oh, I thought we were going to talk about it. So really, what do you think you should talk more about? It seems like academic philosophers are often pretty critical to activism. And what do you think their merits of their attitudes are, like, what is wrong with them? I think there's a little question. I mean, academic philosophers are, to the extent that they even interact or to the extent that they even acknowledge objectivism are very critical of objectivism, I think, for a number of reasons. The reason number one is, objectivism is not in their language. Academic philosophy has a particular way of looking at the world, of engaging in the world, particularly analytical philosophy and modern philosophy. I mean, when you hear a philosopher's actually taught philosophy, it's like a foreign language almost, because they use terms in very different ways. And I mean that, of course, conveyed her philosophy in very, you know, in terms that anybody could understand. You read the virtue of selfishness. And you really understand it. I think you have to read it a few times. But it's not because the words are difficult. It's not because she's using content in a difficult way. It's just because the ideas are hard, and you have to integrate them. So first, it's a different language, and they have to bridge. They have to figure out, what is she actually talking about? And sometimes, for example, today in philosophy, there's something called virtue ethics. And the virtue ethicists, ethicists, are starting to look at, I read, and take a little seriously, because some of them are trying to bridge that language gap, and they see her maybe as a virtue ethicist in some ways. So I think that's one big challenge. The second is that she challenges everything. She doesn't just challenge the literature. She doesn't say, oh, well, I've got this idea in ethics. Maybe you can look at it. No, she's a system builder. She has a unique metaphysics, a unique epistemology, a unique ethics, a unique politics, and a unique aesthetic. And she integrates them all into all in one system. And in many respects, they've only been two or three other, maybe three other system builders in all the philosophical history, Plato, Aristotle, and Immanuel Kant. I mean, almost all of the philosophers kind of were specialistic in a particular area, didn't do much in any other area. And it's hard for them to grasp that, and particularly given that she's challenging them on every single one of those ideas. So I think it's just too challenging, too fast, too new, and it overturns too much. And the fact is that almost all philosophers today are really from one tradition, which is the continental French-German tradition of doing philosophy in a particular way. I mean, it's not like there are a lot of philosophers out there today who are like, I would like to make philosophers. Like Locke and Hume, or they think.  Most of them are, you know, Kant, Hegel Schruppen, how Nietzsche, Marx, whatever, that kind of line of philosophers. And it may be the French, you know, the postmodernist or whatever, that's not being philosophy. But, you know, that line of thinking, and that line of thinking in every respect, on every issue, is the opposite of I'm there. And it's just, they don't want to deal with it, they can't deal with it, they don't have the tools for it. It's really going to require a rethinking of the profession, you know, and I think it's starting. So I think the retroethesis, for example, of returning to Aristotle, which I give in ethics, rather than a Kantian, Hegelian view of ethics, right? So they're going back to Aristotle. I think you're seeing even a little bit in some discussions in epistemology where they're rediscovering reason. But it's really hard to rediscover reason when so many philosophers today don't believe in free world. And if you don't have free world, what are we reasoning about? I mean, what? So there are a lot of problems in humanity broadly. I think IBM provides a solution to, but they're closed off to it because it's so radical. It's so different. And then I think the politics alienates them as well. So philosophers tend to be of a political, tend to be of a leftist political bench. The ones that are on the right tend to be religious. The ones on the left tend to be leftist. And therefore, the radicalism of capitalism is rejected by those on the left. And the advocacy, or atheism is rejected by those who tend to be conservative or religious. So it's hard to find a constituency that's open to all ideas. I'm in the back room. So we'll make these the last two questions. So like that. Yeah. Are there any ways for any people because you know these thoughts? But then if the whole purpose of morality is to have the best life that you want to have, then what is the point of your treatment system? To teach you how to do it. To teach you, right? Well, why aren't the people teaching them? What's that? Why aren't the teachers teaching them? Why am I? Okay, so because we love teaching.   And if I lived in a world where everybody was that egoist, then my life would be a thousand times better. But I also do it because I love the process of teaching, the process of explaining, the process of coming up with new ways in which to explain ideas. That is an amazing thing, but I don't do it out of sacrifice. Do I look like I'm suffering up here? I mean, so the fact that somebody's teaching doesn't make them an altruist. I'm a trader, so I teach because I think I'm gonna get something back, right? Whether it's your, I see a light go on, like, oh, that was interesting. I never heard that in one of my students. That makes my day. When I see somebody go, huh, that's it. Because what I'm trying to do is get you to think. I know I'm not convincing anybody of everything because that would be ridiculous. You can't convince anybody of anything. They have to think it through. But if I created a little bit of cognitive dissonance, if I intrigued any of you to go look at these ideas a little further, if I challenged the belief that you've had and you just said to yourself, huh, I never thought of it that way, let me think about this some more, then I've done my job. That's the reward that I get, right? That's my reward in doing that. And that's the fun. I mean, why does Steve Jobs go and create an iPhone? Does he do it because he cares about me? No, I mean, he did it because he loves doing stuff like this. He loves the process, he loves the challenge. He loves, and then when somebody uses it and enjoys it, he goes, yeah, I did that, right? And if somebody changes their mind, I go, yeah, I did that. That's cool. So people teach because they love teaching. And the teachers who don't love teaching, give me up, the teachers who don't love teaching, keep them away from my kids, right? Keep them away from your kids. So it's a profession like any others. Some people play music, why do they play music? Because they care about the listeners, not because they love playing music. Yeah, the listeners, the sponsors of the listeners is part of that level of playing music, but it's not. Other people that is driving them, it's their own passion and their own love. So I think everybody should pursue their own self-interest, teachers, students, and everybody, and people need to learn how to pursue their self-interest. I have a strong incentive to try to teach that because I want you to be as good as you can be. Because if you're as good as you can be, you'll produce values that I would benefit from. The world does not a zero-sum game. The world is an additive. It's a wing-wing.  No, the world is this additive.   Because they can only produce a profit if they're making stuff that benefits people. So it's additive.  First of all, where are you at that time? I think you was at the end. Okay, cool. First of all, thank you for coming to speak. It's been a pleasure listening to you. I'm just curious to hear what you would think. I've heard veterans and obviously other politicians talking about foreign policy as far as we go there so they don't come here. I'd just like to hear your thoughts on that. I'm also doing that if it worked and if they knew what they were doing. So, but you have to be careful what does that mean? So first you have to understand why they're coming. And so first you have to understand motivation. And then if you have to go over there to destroy their motivation, then yeah, if you do that but you don't go over there to bring democracy to the Iraqi people. I mean, how did that work out? Not for the Iraqis and not for us. I think in the long run. And history will be the judge of the long run here. But I don't want to get into a long discussion of foreign policy, but the essence is yeah, if I know that there's a training camp of terrorists in Saudi Arabia or Yemen or wherever and they are planning and attacking the United States, then you go there and you destroy it before they attack you. You don't have to bring democracy to the world in order to prevent people from attacking you. All you have to make them is scared enough of your response if they do attack you, for example.  Thank you so much for answering your question. Sure, no.