Fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights. This is the Euron Brook Show. All right, everybody. Welcome to Euron Brook Show on this Wednesday, March 6th. As you can tell, I'm in London, my hotel in London. This is a bit different room than usual in my hotel, so background's a little different, but a bunch of mirrors. It looks kind of cool, and then there's always the porcupine. Don't know what he's doing there, but there he is. All right, I am in London for the next couple of days, and I go to Amsterdam for Ironman Conference Europe, which is on Saturday and Sunday. And then I'll be back in London very late Monday night, and then Tuesday, Wednesday I'll be here, and Thursday I'm flying home. And I'll be doing, tomorrow I'm doing a public speaking seminar for kind of a second round for people who did the first one already, and then next Monday I'm doing a public speaking seminar in Amsterdam, and I think I've got eight people in that. And then on Wednesday next week, I'm giving a talk on Israel for a think tank, a local think tank here. And that I will publish, and I will share with you the URL, because you'll be able to watch it. It'll be live streamed, and you'll be able to watch it. So I'll share with the URL with you so you can watch it live. The audience itself, it's going to be a pretty controlled environment, and in a pretty secure building, and so it will be safe, but the nice thing is because of a really controlled environment, there won't be a lot of people, but the nice thing is they will be live streaming it to all of their audience. So hopefully once you get that link, you can sign up and watch it. So that'll be an advantage as well. Is the stereo off or is it just me? Are you guys only hearing this on one channel? Is that, I can, I don't, it shouldn't be a problem. It should be, stereo shouldn't be off, stereo is on, pretty much everywhere. Let me know if you're not getting it for some reason. Not getting it for some reason. Let's see, Jeff is asking for any dinner reservations. I haven't, you know, my schedule's been so crazy, and I didn't know what events I was doing, and I didn't know if the events would come through, and what type of day the events were, and all of that. So I haven't, but I will. I'm going to try to do a dinner tomorrow. I've got a couple of free nights next week in London as well that I'll try to do. I've got a new African restaurant.  I think it's called, that is really good. A little bit more affordable than my previous favorite African restaurant, Ikoi, which is still my favorite, but it's now got two Michelin stars, and it's just absurdly ridiculously expensive. So I've got this other one, which is one Michelin star, is really, really good. I'm going to try to get a table there, although it's hard to get reservations, so I'm going to try to find something. Geoffrey says, I love the eel at Lyles. I can't remember if I've eaten at Lyles or not, but I'll see. I'll let you guys know about my gastronomic experiences. I did try to go to a restaurant I really, really like in Amsterdam, but I have one semi-free night, and they're already booked out, so I won't be able to attend that. I'm going to check out the restaurants tomorrow. Hopefully tomorrow I'll have time to, or maybe after the show today, I'll try to figure out that stuff. You're not here to listen to me talk about restaurants. I'm going to, in London, you're here to hear the news. We're going to do a quick, we'll do a news roundup, although I don't have quite as many stories as I usually do, but we'll cover certainly these two and maybe some more. And then, is the caminar level of my crooked? Let's see, maybe the tripod's a little off. Maybe that's better. All right, let me know. I mean, I can be crooked. I'll do the show like this? No. All right, so yesterday was Super Tuesday. It's usually the deciding day of the primary season. It's when a bunch of states have their primaries, 13, 14 states have their primaries, and usually after Super Tuesday you get a pretty good idea of who the nominees from each party are going to do here. There were no surprises in Super Tuesday, and really we already knew before Super Tuesday who the nominee was for both parties. I mean, Biden went easily everywhere. He is going to be the Democratic nominee unless he drops dead or unless the Democrats wake up from the slumber and actually fire him and replace him in some smoke-filled room. I'm not even sure that's possible, but I guess it is. There's still a convention. The Republicans have made up their mind. They are unequivocal. They're excited. They're motivated. They're unified, united. At least a significant percentage of Republicans, 60%, 70% of Republicans have basically committed themselves to Trump. Trump is the Republican nominee. He's been the Republican nominee really since it became clear that DeSantis was a failure. DeSantis was not going to be attractive to Republicans in this election cycle. I don't think he ever will. I think he's finished politically. Nikki Haley announced earlier today, given the results on Super Tuesday, that she is stepping down. She's suspending her campaign. She didn't endorse Trump. Good for her. I hope she never does, but she did suspend the campaign. She won one state. I think it's Super Tuesday. I think Vermont. She won D.C. a few days ago, but she was not going to get more than 30% of the vote, 30, 35. New Hampshire was probably her best showing, and she just couldn't match it anywhere. And not in any big state, not in any substantially red state, the Republican Party has made a clear choice, a clear decision. It really is unequivocal, and that is that they want Donald Trump as their nominee. They want Donald Trump to be president. Whether he will be, whether he can be is yet to be determined, but he certainly is going to be the nominee. The polls, the polls are very favorable to Trump right now. It definitely looks like Trump is going to win the presidency. He is polling ahead of Biden. And I know it's early, but the reality is that he's never pulled ahead of Biden. He never pulled ahead of Biden. I think there were maybe four polls in the entire 2016 election season from February to the election where he voted better than Biden. There were a couple of ties, but generally Biden pulled ahead of him throughout the entire time. In 2016, he almost never pulled ahead of Hillary Clinton. So what happens is that Donald Trump outperforms the polls. He outperformed the polls in 2016. He actually outperformed the polls in 2020. And so if he's ahead this early and then he outperforms the polls, he's going to stomp on Biden. He's going to stomp on Biden. And that seems to be the pattern. That seems to be the direction that we're heading. We'll talk about that in a minute, but it's sinking in. I think I've seen commentator after commentator after commentator, serious political hacks making the point that not only is Donald Trump the nominee, but not of Trump right now is a significant favorite to win the election. And that the Democrats, at least for the White House, that Biden is in deep, deep trouble, deep, deep trouble. And it doesn't really surprise me in a sense, right? In some sense, it surprises me. It surprises me that the American people can forget so easily that the American people can ignore character so easily, can forget what this man did as president and how horrible he was, forget, you know, what he, to the extent he stands for anything what he stands for. But Americans, the reality is they've forgotten. They've forgotten. You know, it's gone. They have forgiven him COVID. They have forgiven him the just the sheer grotesqueness of his character and of his, of the way he handled himself as president. They've forgiven on all of that. And I think the reason fundamentally is, you know, obviously the base loves him because whatever, because he's anti-left. But I think the reason the Americans who are answering polling questions strongly in favor of Trump, I think there are basically two things going on. One is they vaguely remember that before COVID, they felt better about the economy. They felt more secure about their jobs. And Trump was very, very good at tooting his own horn, right, at saying over and over and over and over again that this was the greatest economy ever. That this economy was going fantastically. That everything was doing amazingly, even though clearly, by many objective measure, it wasn't true. He repeated it so many times and a lot of people kind of said, no, okay. And even though at the time they weren't going to vote for Trump because of everything else that was going on now, given inflation and given a sentiment, a very negative sentiment about the economy, even as the economy is doing pretty well, at least as well as it did under Trump. That is a big factor. The way people feel about the economy right now is tilting them towards going with Trump. Not because of anything that Trump stands for because he's the most ignorant president ever in terms of economics, but because of their memory of how it was or the perceived memory of how it was when he was president. I think the second issue is Americans hate the left. They really do. Even moderate leftists hate the left. Time after time after time. They reject the far left. They reject the wacky left. They reject any semblance of that, whether it's DI, Woke, however you want to call it. Americans don't accept the far left. And they want to stand up against it. And then Trump is their way of standing up against it. They're not excited about Trump. They don't love Trump. They don't like the base that loves Trump. But they'll vote for him because they perceive that Biden is vulnerable to the crazy left. And that Kamala, who would take over if Biden dropped dead or was incapable of being president, Kamala is even more beholden to the far left. And they want nothing to do with the far left. Again, I've talked about this.  There is suddenly no energy around things like defunding the police. And there's really no energy right now about DEI. And maybe the issue that's galvanized Americans more than anything, more than the economy. If you look at survey after survey after survey, the number one issue that Americans are most concerned about and that is shaping how they are voting right now, at least at the level of the presidency, is immigration. It's the southern border. It's what's going on on the southern border. And what can I say? Propaganda works. The Republican Party has done a masterful job. A masterful job at convincing the American public that what is happening at the border is an unmitigated disaster, that it's horrible, that is the worst thing that could possibly happen to the country and it's the number one issue. The number one issue that they should worry about. And it's worked. And Biden has made a massive strategic mistake. He should have months ago found a way to send people back. He might have lost a few of the fall-left supporters, but he would have captured the middle of America. And now I think it's too late because now everybody will say whatever he does is negative. The reality is that the southern border, as I've said many, many times, it's not a crisis. People are coming to America. Why is that a crisis? The only thing that makes it a crisis, the thing that is really disturbing about it and the thing that Americans should be upset at is the fact that the immigrants crossing the border cannot work and are dependent on welfare. And that indeed is causing massive problems in cities like New York and Chicago and along the southern border. The fact that they can't work, the fact that they're getting welfare, that's the issue, that's the concern, that's the crisis, and that's fixable like that. Give them work permits. Don't give them welfare. Easy. You can even argue that the number of immigrants, and the number of people now arguing this, the number of immigrants that came in since 2021 is actually one of the reasons why the economy is doing pretty well. More people working, produces greater GDP, produces greater, more consumers, produces more stuff being produced, more stuff being sold, more stuff happening. Immigration is, and it always has to be, you know, it always has to be, a massive net positive economically. So it could very well be that what offset the pain, what offset the challenge of higher interest rates, and all of us were convinced that given the higher interest rate we would go into recession, what offset that was more people coming in and working, and therefore producing, and therefore creating more jobs, and therefore creating more demand for goods, and bolstering the economy. So to the extent that they work legally or illegally, most of them are working illegally because they can't work legally, they, you know, they are helping. Lots of people break the law. Lots of people break the law. Every time I speed I break the law. Should my work permit be taken away from me? Should I be denied work? Should I be put on welfare? Because I break the law sometimes. I mean, it's funny to me how people break the law at the time and all kinds of laws, and most laws where there's no victim and immigration is a law with no victim, most laws where there's no victim, most free market types say, yeah, I mean, we shouldn't have penalties against people where there's a victimless crime. And here's a victimless crime. And the level, the harshness of the penalties is just unbelievable. But this is the country we live in. And this is the way it works. And they're not picking strawberries because the reality is that there are no strawberries grown in the United States anymore because all the strawberries that used to be grown in the United States could not be because there were not enough workers to actually pick them because of minimum wage the workers were too expensive, but also because of the immigration controls we didn't have for years and years and years. There were just not enough immigrants coming in, seasonal workers coming in to pick the strawberries. What happened is that the strawberry growers all went out of business, basically sold their land to developers. And the strawberries you buy in the supermarkets today are almost all of them grown in Mexico. So Mexico benefited from the fact that we refused to allow immigrants to come in in order to pick strawberries. But where there's a massive shortage of labor and there's still what, eight, nine million jobs going unfilled in America today, the massive shortage of labor is in the construction industry. It's one of the reasons we have a housing crisis and that's a real crisis. We don't build enough houses. Partially regulation, even if the regulation went away there's just not enough labor to build those houses. In the past when we've had big booms in home construction they have also coincided with periods of large illegal immigration. So if we want large numbers of homes constructed what we need is more immigrants. We could make them legal, which would be ideal, right? But since we're now making them legal we can't get them legal.  So the reality is that Americans are wrong on immigration. Just like Americans are wrong on social security and Medicare just like Americans are wrong on the welfare state just like Americans are wrong on the regulatory state just like Americans are wrong on individual rates.  Is that a surprise? I mean isn't that what we've been saying forever? Isn't that what anybody who believes in free markets have been arguing forever that the rest of the world doesn't get economics that the rest of the world doesn't get how the world actually works? Isn't that what Anne Vance said? Over and over and over again. And now the people who want to claim, you know, the people who are standing for objectivism and saying, no, no, Americans know exactly what's right. They know exactly what's good for them. They are the standard. Democracy is the standard. Most of the people fear that is true. That must be true. The standard of human well-being, the standard of reality, the standard of what actually is moral and immoral, what works and what doesn't work, the moral is the practical, by the standard of life. There's only one standard and that is the standard of human life. By the standard of human life, Americans are wrong on all those issues and have been far very long time. And we all suffer. That's why objectivists are not mainstream Americans. We're not part of the mainstream. We're not part of any kind of mainstream coalition. We're, you know, we stand in our position to what is going on in American and the world today. All right. Anyway, I think what all this really suggests is that America's given up on any semblance of a political party, even a political party, you know, even a moderate, you know, even a kind of a moderate pretense of a political party that represents freedom. That represents the founding fathers. That represents individual rights. That represents even some semblance of capitalism. The Republican Party had that. Again, semblance, not reality. Assemblance, orientation, they talk to talk a little bit sometimes. But Republicans are basically given up on it completely. They've given up on it completely. There's no talk about the founding fathers. There's no talk about individual rights. There's no talk about capitalism. All of that has been completely, utterly, 100% abandoned in the name of populist Trumpism, which stands for nothing other than statism. Statism based on the idea of, you know, whatever Trump wants. Statism with no principle. More statists are not principled. Statism with no principle. Statism with no ideology. Statism just focused on we hate the left. We want Trump. So a lot of people vote for Trump for relatively rational reasons because they don't want Biden. They don't want the left. I get that. But the Republican base. The Republicans who voted in the primaries who had choices. They had the Santas. They had Haley.  The Republicans who chose Trump over all of those other people and basically chose it to abandon what the conservative movement, what the Republican Party stood for for many, many years, didn't do a good job at it. Maybe that they deserve it. Maybe they deserve to die. But it is a sad, sad day. And this is the day, although maybe it was 2016. Maybe we should have seen this coming. But this is the day where it's unequivocal. There is no Republican Party of the past. This is a new party. It's based on completely different ideas. The only principle it seems to have is opposition to abortion. But it stands for pretty much nothing. Nothing. And it is completely rallied behind Trump. And it also, the other thing, the one thing it does stand for, let me correct that. The one thing it does stand for is big government. It stands for big government, big government that intervenes in our lives, intervenes in our culture, intervenes in the economy. Four, quote, Republican causes. Four things the Republican believes in to oppress the left. But still, this is a political party that is now the difference being it. And it and the Democrats is not any fundamental principle, but more, you know, who gets to wield the power over whom. And the issues around which the power gets wielded are not issues of who's going to violate our rights, not that one party is not going to violate rights. Sad state. Sad state. All right. Another illustration, I think, of the fact that the American people are rejecting kind of the crazy left, the far left was Super Tuesday again, the election in the primary in California for who is going to run for the Senate. So California has an open primary. Everybody signs up. Everybody's running. Democrats are Republicans. The top two vote getters then run in the election at the end to determine who's going to replace Dianne Feinstein. Well, I mean, Dianne Feinstein is already gone, the person who's replaced Dianne Feinstein is temporary. Who's going to take that seat in California Senate seat? And there were a number of Democratic candidates and the expectation was given in California so, so dark blue that the top two vote getters would do Democrats and ultimately the battle for who would represent California in the Senate, but it would be between two Democrats, probably a relatively speaking middle of the world Democrat like Adam Schiff, who won the primary yesterday and somebody who represents the progressive far left, probably somebody like Katie Porter. And it would be between the two. Which Democrat do we want to see? Well, it turned out that they didn't count on the fact that Katie Porter is not as popular as maybe people thought she was. And to the fact that the Republicans actually nominated somebody who's a has name recognition because he was a baseball player. And B is seems like a pretty moderate guy, or at least seems like somebody who's managed to avoid taking strong positions on a lot of things. And that's a first name. Gavi is a second name as a pitcher for the Dodgers, the LA Dodgers and the San Diego Padres. Anyway, he came second yesterday. So California will actually have a Republican running to fill the Senate seat. California has not elected a statewide Republican since Schwarzenegger in 2006. So no senators, no governors, no statewide officials are being elected. So yeah, it'll be interesting. I don't think there's a chance. I think the Democrats will run away with it. But at least the Katie Porter, who I despise, who is one of the most awful politicians, haters. She's a hater of business. She is a more sophisticated Elizabeth Wan and has made a big name for herself among progressive politicians. I was super happy yesterday, super happy that she lost. So that's the good news. The good news is a really, really bad leftist lost in California. In California, the bastion of crazy leftist, right? So again, I think that confirms the trend, which I think is there, that Americans won't vote for the crazy left. For the most part, they won't vote for them, even in California. One other point, and here I'll say something positive about Republicans. There's only one issue, really, these days. I think this is right. These days there's only one issue. At the state level, not at the federal level, but only one issue where, well, maybe there are two issues. There are two issues, really, where I'm supportive of Republicans. One is at the state level, one at the federal level, but both are important. At the state, at the federal level, let me just say at the federal level quickly, and then we're at the state level. Republicans are still pretty good for now, I don't know how long this will last, on energy. So on drilling, although again, nobody seems to care, but the reality is that America right now is producing more oil, taking more oil out of the ground than ever in its history. In spite of Biden, in spite of the left, in spite of everything, the United States today is producing more oil than ever. Even more oil than when Donald Trump was president. So energy policy better under Republicans, far from good, because ultimately, even under Republicans, even under Trump, they didn't open up a nuclear. They didn't make that widely available. They didn't deregulate that and to make it competitive. But on the oil and gas front, they're pretty good. They're pretty good. And indeed, and we'll get to that, but indeed that's another interesting issue. That's a global issue. The reality is now that political parties that are making climate change, anti-fossile fuel, the center of their campaign, are losing throughout the world. And political parties that are basically giving it a little bit of lip service, but marching ahead with drill baby drill equivalent, drill baby drill, whatever it happens to be in the world, are winning and political parties in Europe that are anti-climate change policies are going to do phenomenally well in the next election. And it's turned out that again, the public, even European public, never mind American public, is not interested in committing suicide over climate change. They're not interested in giving up their life and their livelihood and their economic progress and their wealth for the sake of the planet, for the sake of climate changing that people keep saying is catastrophic, but I don't think anybody experiences is catastrophic in their lives and doesn't believe it. So the reality is that again, the far left policy of climate change is a policy that the public, American public and now the European public even, are rejecting it. Look, this is a big deal for Europe. Europe was like super enthused about Greta. Greta was the hero of Europe. And yet here we are with Europe turning their back on Greta and you'll see, I think in the coming elections, you'll see parties that are opposed to climate change policies winning more and more and more seats all over Europe. We've got the big European parliamentary elections coming up really soon where I think a lot of these anti-climate change policy parties will do very, very well. This is partially part of what's going on with the farmers' strikes all over Europe, but really all over the world. Same thing is happening in India. So climate change is not a winning strategy right now for politicians. I'm not sure it ever was, but it certainly isn't right now. It probably was in Europe for a long time, but I think even there, given what's going on with energy prices, it's gone. So the one issue I favor Republicans certainly is energy. The other issue, and this is a state-level issue because the federal government, it doesn't matter, Republicans or Democrats, they all suck. At the state issue, the issue that I think Republicans are best on is education. And primarily, and I'm not talking about the education policy here because they're really terrible in educational policy. I would rather have the Democrats on educational policy. But it's on vouchers. It's on school choice. Republicans have made some significant progress on school choice. They've advanced the school choice issue quite a bit from where it was not that long ago. And as a consequence of that, you've got more school choice options around the country than ever before. And this is relevant yesterday to Super Tuesday. Again, we're still on this topic because the governor of Texas has proposed a big school choice bill. A big school choice bill that, to its credit, included a significant portion of education saving accounts, which is my preferred method of getting the state out of education, at least out of the basically getting rid of government education and turning it private is one way to do it, is through education saving accounts as a step in that direction. Anyway, you know, Texas proposed education saving accounts. A big chunk of the Republican Party and the Democratic Party opposed it and they couldn't get it through the House and Senate. Yesterday there were primary elections and a lot of the Republicans who opposed school choice were beaten by candidates who wanted school choice and who got the support of the governor and the lieutenant governor and the attorney general in order to do that. So I think that's a step in the right direction. These people who came in supporting school choice as part of the Republican, the Texas elections. Unfortunately, also really, really bad on other issues. But you know, I believe that school choice is maybe the most important issue and maybe the one that we can have the most impact on in the short run. And state after state have over the last few years embraced more and more school choice and more and more education saving accounts. I'm still not seeing the revolutionary impact that I think this should and could have. Maybe because the programs are not quite as comprehensive as I would like them to be and they should be. We're still not seeing a massive movement out of public education, government education into private education. We saw some of that over COVID but I don't think that was related to the education saving accounts. I'm still hopeful that the impact of this is going to be slow but ultimately exponential and that what this will allow is basically for the destruction of government schools and the adoption by poor kids, middle-class kids throughout rich kids of private education, rich kids already probably going to private schools. But this would be a way for poor kids and middle-class kids to also go to those private schools. So that's the one issue at the state level that I think Republicans do a good job. Not great. Like the bill in Florida, again, one of the things I wasn't excited about the Santas, the bill in Florida was weak as compared to some of these other bills in Tennessee and Oklahoma and in Arizona and hopefully now with those who obstructed the votes in Texas, now hopefully this bill will pass in Texas, a big state, lots of population, so it'll be important. It could really have a massive impact on a national scale if Texas does this and it's successful. All right. That's enough about Super Tuesday. So one more news item and then I'll go to your super chat questions.  They don't stop talking about a ceasefire in the Middle East. It's as if this is some magic. There's some magic to ceasefire and the ceasefire is somehow the moral stand, the moral high ground, the thing.  This is where the appeasers, the compromises, the sellouts, this is where they stand, ceasefire, ceasefire, ceasefire. You probably saw Kamala Harris make this statement about we demand a ceasefire now, right? And the reality is, which they never mentioned. They don't actually talk about it because they don't know what to do with it. Israel keeps giving more. This is a ceasefire in Gaza. Israel keeps saying, okay, we'll make the ceasefire longer. Okay, we'll release more prisoners per hostage that is released from Hamas. We'll do all these things. We'll gravel before you. And every time there's a new round of negotiation, Israel gives more. And Hamas, zilch, nothing. Hamas basically says, look, we're not interested in a ceasefire. Come and get us. The only ceasefire we want is a permanent ceasefire and a complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza. And instead of the world led by the United States saying, you know what, Hamas? We've tried. We've negotiated. We've put enormous pressure on Israel. Israel has negotiated and goodwill and presented multiple plans. You have rejected every one of them. Israel, keep going. Crush them. Destroy them. Tell us the ceasefire. I mean, that is really the only, the only moral attitude that a free country should take. Anything else is moral betrayal. Anything else is despicable. And for the United States to keep ceasefire, ceasefire, ceasefire, and pressure the Israelis and to yell at Netanyahu and to yell at the Israeli government and to... Given what's going on on the ground, given what Israel is actually giving up, given what everybody knows Hamas did, what everybody knows Hamas intends to do, everybody knows what Hamas is as an organization. And the very fact that consistent with its nature as an organization, it is the one resisting these ceasefires. It wants Israel to come into Rafiq, which is in the south of Gaza. They want more civilian casualties. They want, because they want to somehow, you know, they think they're winning the PR game. That's the bottom line. They think they're winning the PR game. And indeed, yesterday, in the election yesterday and Super Tuesday, there were a lot of votes in the Democratic primary for none of the above as basically an organized effort to vote against Biden's Israel policy. Biden, it turns out, is too Israel friendly. That's the world in which we live. The moral inversion here. That you're taking the victim, you're taking the party that's fighting a self-defense and making them the moral party because they won't agree to some suicidal pact involving a, quote, ceasefire. The barrier to ceasefire is Hamas. Everybody who dies in Gaza is the fault of Hamas. It was the fault. I mean, remember, there was a ceasefire on October 6th. Who violated that ceasefire? Hamas. Everybody who's dying in Gaza is Hamas' fault. Hamas is responsible. And it's not just America. It's Europe. It's everybody. Everybody is stood by Israel initially. It's turning against it. You know, the United Nations today this morning announced that they have investigated and it looks like it appears that possibly, maybe even probably, the accusations of mass rape that happened on October 7th are probably possibly true. It's taking, what, four months to come to that conclusion? It is truly shocking. The level of hatred towards Israel. And you can't help but conclude that this is anti-Semitism through and through. It's not about criticizing Israel. I criticize Israel all the time. But this is so consistent, so prevalent, so it goes against the facts of actually what's going on in the ground. And it's so embraced by almost everybody that you have to conclude that, you know, anti-Semitism is alive and well throughout the world. And even in the United States of America. And it's just, all of that just makes it obvious why Israel has to exist. Needs to exist. In spite of the fact that in an ideal world there would be no ethno states. There would be no states that limited immigration. In this imperfect world, given the hatred of Jews everywhere, given the number of enemies that it has, Israel is completely justified in providing Jews all over the world a safe haven. Yeah, perfect world wouldn't need that. Even a decent world wouldn't need that. But we don't live in one.  And it's on display right now on TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, but also on the major news channels and even in the White House and everywhere else. It's on display in ways that I could have never thought it would be on display in America. I mean, it's everywhere in the world. It's on display in the streets of London every weekend. Luckily I won't be here in the weekend. It's sad, depressing. Israel is trying to do the right thing. Two, altruistically in my view. But it's trying to do the right thing. It is trying to defeat an enemy of civilization. It has tried to defeat a force in the world that is unequivocally evil. And it is being thwarted not by the enemy. It's being thwarted by people who claim to be on its side. And yep. And it's, you know, and the hatred is primarily from the left, but it's also from the right, from the Candaceau and Tucker Carlson and worse and right today. And in that sense, who knows what Trump's policy towards Israel will be. I mean, it'll be as unpredictable and as random and as confused as anything else he does. But given the kind of influences that are growing up within the Republican Party, emerging within the Republican Party, growing within the Republican Party, who knows what influences he will be attuned to when he is president and when he needs to make decisions about Israel. Much more likely he'll be the biggest friend in the world to Arab countries, ultimately, than particularly the ones that have oil, the ones that have very big checks, that have economic influence than him being friendly towards Israel. The only reason I think there's a chance that he's friendly towards Israel is because the evangelicals love Israel. They love Israel for all the wrong reasons. But what can you do if they love Israel and he has to cultivate the evangelicals? I have no problem with hatred. I'm all for hatred. But hatred for the good is evil. I'm an advocate for hatred. I don't believe in repressing hatred. I don't believe in not hating that which deserves hatred should be hated. But the idea that this hatred is towards an ethnic group, a religious group, a nationality, that this hatred is towards Jews and Israel who don't deserve it, it's really hatred for the good, for being the good. And it's evil. It's downright, unequivocally evil. And if you can't see that, then you're part of it. You are part of it. I'm not against hatred.       I hate a lot of people. All right, let's see.  There's no question about it. Of Jews. What Tucker Carlson said about Ben Shapiro is so unjust, so untrue.  I don't know what Tucker Carlson, deep in his heart, believes in if he believes in anything. But is Tucker Carlson playing the anti-Semitism game? Absolutely. Just watch what he said about Ben Shapiro, which is completely made up.  And everything he says about Israel, other stuff he says about Israel, it's clear that he's playing that. He is a, as I've said, he's a stuck up, rich snob, never gone grocery shopping in the United States, doesn't know anything about this country, but is very good at manipulating, manipulating people who are afraid. Dominate emotion among Republicans today? Fear. Fear. And fear is something you can manipulate. Candace Owen is out and out anti-Semite. But she's really horrible, really horrible. And pretty much every issue out there. So Candace, ugh. Candace caters there anti-Semite. She caters to all kinds of the most horrible conspiracy theory nutcases on the planet. And she's one of the worst people out there. In terms of who versus the radical left, there's no difference. They're all horrible. All right. It's okay, Ken. I mean, I'm sure when you listen to what he said about Ben, you'll completely rationalize it. You'll explain it away. God forbid you have a negative thought about somebody like Tucker or Candace Owen. I mean, that would be unacceptable. Right? They're on the right. They must be good people. They must be part of your world, part of your thing. I mean, the lack of objectivity of people is stunning. People who claim affinity to objectivism. The lack of objectivity. Really upsetting. All right. Let us jump into the super chat. All right. Spiderman says he's got a grocery store in his neighborhood that has the coin thing where you get the grocery card. Yeah, you should do. You should do. A number of people have already done videos making fun of Tucker. But you can't make enough videos making fun of Tucker.    I mean, even Putin was disappointed. And his propaganda around Moscow.  Because there's a ton to make fun of pretty much everything that Tucker did in Moscow.  And I know, I know, Tucker cannot do wrong. So Ken and others will defend him to the death. But I've been to Moscow.  And he lied. A combination of those two. Plus he doesn't know anything about America. So he thinks dollar stores are the worst things that ever happened to America. And he doesn't know about grocery clubs. And he doesn't know about grocery shopping. Because he probably has never done it. All right. We have a couple of hundred dollar questions. Thank you guys. Really appreciate this. All right, let's start with Clark. Clark says, academic skepticism. Academic skepticism also convinced the right that ideas don't matter. And the right now uses the same methods and unchecked premises as the left. Leaving rationality out of politics. We now have politics as an irrational tribal war. As was the case with Weimar Germany. I think that's absolutely right. Basically, rationality is, there's no role in politics. Does not belong in the political world, right? And neither party today is rational. It's advocating anything around rationality. There's a small segment of the Republican Party. There's a small segment of the Democratic Party that still pretend otherwise. But fundamentally, they've given up on reason. They've given up on facts. They've given up on reality. And it's a tribal war of emotion. And it's very, very similar to the Weimar Republic. And the great tragedy is that it could very well end up like the Weimar Republic. Just as Lennepikov predicted, right? I mean, Lennepikov predicted in the ominous parallels and they didn't get a dim in the hypothesis that this country was moving towards authoritarianism. Do you think that anything has happened over the last 10 years to suggest that that's not going to be the outcome? I don't know where you live. And certainly since 2016, everything suggests that is a direction we're heading in. That's a direction significant portion of both Republicans and Democrats want to head in authoritarianism is in our future unless something dramatic happens. And I don't know what that dramatic thing is going to happen. It's certainly not going to happen in this election. And it might not be something dramatic that happens in an election, but it really seems to me that no matter who wins, the ominous parallels, dim hypothesis are coming true before our eyes. And one of the great tragedies is that there will be people who call themselves objectivists who are swept into it, swept up with it and who ultimately embrace it, particularly if it's authoritarianism for the right defeating the left and they'll embrace it, anything to defeat the left, as Scott will tell you. So that will be one of the great tragedies. Of course, that happened in Germany. A lot of good people got swept up with the Nazis out of fear of the alternative, which they viewed as communism. And so they went along and they made it the possible. And luckily there's no, we don't have a Hitler yet and we certainly don't have anybody who's authoritarian who can unify the country yet, but that's the direction we're heading. And the more you embrace the politics of emotion, the more you embrace the people playing the politics of emotion, the people engaged in the politics of emotion, the more you support that movement, the more you support that movement. There's never been, there has never been a time in American history where it's been more important to criticize all political parties, to criticize both political parties or all if there more than two, to criticize the political parties from the perspective of rationality, from the perspective of rights, from the perspective of individualism, from the perspective of reason. There has to be a voice for an alternative.  All right, Michael says, you say nihilism in today's world is due to how rich we are. I said that? No, I didn't say that. We have time to sit around and cultivate intense resentments towards existence and lash out. But what about Hamas or Europe during the Dark Ages? Everyone there was poor and violent, but less nihilistic. Yeah, I mean, I don't think nihilism is caused by being rich. I think the reality is nihilism is the absence of rational ideas. Nihilism comes from the absence of reason and a rejection of morality. That's where nihilism comes from. All I'm saying is right now in the West, one of the reasons, you know, in a sense that they can afford it is because we're rich, but it's not the cause. It's an incidental factor. It's one of the many factors playing into this is the fact that we're rich and, you know, many poor countries around the world, people are ambitious and they want to get out of the poverty. They don't have time to be and they know what the possibility is. One of the big differences between us and Europe in the Dark Ages is Europe in the Dark Ages didn't see a positive opportunity. And I'm not sure how many nihilists there were in Europe in the Dark Ages. The church that oppressed everybody. But I think that the West has become complacent. And I'm not saying the causal fact is wealth, but wealth helps sustain it. Wealth prevents reality from immediately slapping in your face and making yourself the consequences of your bad ideas immediately. The West's lack of decline, for example, as a consequence of some of its irrational policies is a consequence of its wealth. So I don't think that it's due to how rich we are. I think how rich we are is a factor that makes it possible for people to play with nihilism for a longer period than otherwise they would because they don't feel the consequences. Because their parents will bail them out of jail if they get into trouble. That's just one factor. And it's certainly not the determining factor. Alright, Michael. And Michael, by the way, is amazing in the support for the Iran book show. I mean, the amount of money on super chats that Michael has done for many years is truly stunning. So thank you, Michael. You too can support the show by doing these super chats. It's a great way to support the show, like Michael. And you can also, of course, support the show on a monthly basis. Patreon or uranbrookshow.com. Alright, Michael, there's a $50 question. It seems clear that Israel's defense system was meant to stop any small-scale incursion. Hamas simply overwhelmed the system with numbers and good tactics. I think this is the first time in history people have used paragliders in battle. Yeah, it very well could be the first time the paragliders were used in battle. Hamas was very creative. But at the end of the day, this is a failure of the Israeli military. It's a massive failure. I think the failure is ultimately at the government level because the government didn't take intelligence assessment seriously that would have alerted the military to what was about to happen. Nothing that happened were not things that Israel had not considered, had not thought of. I mean, there are memos going back. What are we now, 2024, six years, six, seven years before COVID. Particularly one government minister, Lieberman, wrote a whole paper about what Hamas could do and wrote about overwhelming just sheer numbers and rushing the border. Everything that happened was predictable and predicted by people. But the political class and certain people in the upper echelons of the military ignored all that and basically let what happened happen. Buy through the fact that they ignored it and hopefully they will be held accountable for all that. We'll see politics doesn't always hold politicians accountable. But hopefully Netanyahu and many of the generals and many of the other senior politicians will be held accountable and they will be out of there. But this was a failure of intelligence, failure of analysis, failure of leadership, failure of and talk about complacency. You brought up complacency earlier. Talk about complacency. Israel, Israeli elites, particularly in politics in the military, were unbelievably complacent. And even though they knew this was possible, even though they had plans about this being possible, even though they had intelligence that this was going to happen, they ignored it. And that's the consequence. All right. Let's see. James, altruism creates a small confusion that is designed to elevate evil to political power or to direct resources to the evil. I don't think altruism is designed for that. I think altruism is designed. Okay, so I think the second is right. Altruism is designed to direct resources to evil. And the most important resource is political power. It's a way for the people in political power to maintain their political power by having everybody sacrifice to them. It's a way for the witch doctor, I don't know, popes and religious priests to stay in power and to stay in control of what's going on in the culture by having everybody sacrificed for them, for the religion that they advocate for, for the ideas they advocate for. Altruism fundamentally is based on mysticism. You can't have really at the end of the day an altruism without accepting stuff on faith, accepting the very morality of altruism on faith. It's a reason-based morality of altruism. And it's meant to preserve the power of those advocating for it. Shazbot, if Trump proposed ending Medicare as opposed to shooting someone on Fifth Avenue, would his supporters abandon him? I mean, it's an impossible question to ask or to answer. Because Trump might, in a moment of clarity or weakness or whatever you want to see it, propose ending Medicare. And then his audience would go, that's not right, boo! And he would say, oh no, I didn't mean that. I need switch. So, I mean, this is exactly what happened with vaccines, right? Trump, at the beginning of the campaign, was constantly touting the fact that his policies brought us vaccines and saved millions of people from COVID. And every time he said that, he got booed. So he stopped saying it. Now, he just doesn't talk about COVID. Or if he does, he says how wonderful he was, but he doesn't talk about vaccines. He just doesn't talk about vaccines anymore. Because, you know, truth is what is marketable. And vaccines are not marketable, therefore it's no longer truth. It's no longer important. So, to conceive of Trump proposing something that his supporters would abandon him over is to assume that Trump could be consistent. And he's not going to be. If it's clear that his supporters would abandon him over this issue, he would switch issues. Switch issue. So, his base hates the vaccines, so they boot MC switched. If he proposed ending Medicare, and it turns out that his base hates the idea of ending Medicare, which I guarantee is the case. I know for a fact his base does not want him to touch Medicare. He will not touch Medicare, right? I mean, what is Trump's base? Trump's base is white, old and uneducated. That's his base. White, old and uneducated, for the most part. White, old, they're not going to give up on Medicare. No way, no way. Old people don't give up on Medicare. The age gap is massive in terms of Trump is primarily attracting old people. Jason. By the way, fear. Think about it. Young people are less inclined towards fear. Old people are more inclined towards fear. If we are to properly, this isn't Jason, if we are to properly increase our legal immigrant population, should the U.S. consider, A, imposing a bond on newcomers? B, using biometric tracking during a one to two year pro-bitory period for permanent residence status? No, I don't understand why you would do either one of those.  If you can get a job, you win. So that's it. You don't need biotra- I mean, what is the problem you're trying to solve? I'm not sure what the issue is. Is the issue violence? Since the spike in illegal immigration in 2021, 2022, violence has declined every year.  And in the latest study of illegal immigrants in Texas, Texas is one of the only states where in jail they track who's an immigrant, who's legal, who's illegal, who's an American born. Illegal immigrants have a significantly lower rate of criminal activity than native born Americans. So what are we tracking them for? What's the issue? I mean, my proposal is as we increase immigration, we should increase immigration based on work. You have a job offer, stamp in a passport. You know, do the FBI background check and make sure they don't have infectious diseases and make sure they're not on a watch list and let them in. What other consideration is there? So I'm not sure what the bond or the biometric tracking is supposed to solve. What's the problem that is supposed to solve crime? Crime is not a problem for immigrants, particularly the legal ones who have jobs in the United States. It's different in place like Sweden, but in the United States immigration is not a problem that results in crime. There is no such thing as merit. Merit for what? The whole merit is central planning 101. Again, it's stunning to me that people who claim to be pro-free markets, who people who claim to be even, you know, objectivists. Merit? The government deciding what is meritorious and what is not?  By what right and by what metric? How do they know what merit means? The market knows what merit means. Somebody needs store repickers, bring store repickers in. Somebody needs, if the market needs welders, bring welders in.  No, it shouldn't be merit as if the government, government, remember who you're giving this power to, the government knows how to evaluate merit. The private sector knows how to evaluate merit. Anybody who can get a job in America should be allowed in. Private sectors evaluated their merit. They must be appropriate for the job. You know, pro-free markets can stop the delusion. This is the delusion. If you were pro-free markets, you wouldn't be for a merit-based system. A merit-based system is central planning. If you were pro-free markets, you wouldn't even have a small inkling of supporting Donald Trump.  But you guys support Donald Trump because you think it's pretty good? Not if you're a free market, not if you believe in even a little bit in free markets. If you know what it means, maybe you don't know what free markets mean. Maybe, maybe you really do think you believe in it. That Duda Bunny says, don't stop until you're proud. Well, as long as you're doing something that's worthy. That's good, yeah. James, when trying to persuade people of objectivist ideas, they have this visceral gut-check emotional response and attachment to altruism. It is nearly impossible to make them question, let alone reject it. Yeah, this is why it's so important to get, this is why education is so important. It's so important to get people when they're young so they can think freely before they're brainwashed into these ideas. And of course, the less intelligent people are, the more they just absorb the morality of the culture and just accept it and just embrace it. And they can't afford to have a challenge because it challenges everything. So, yes, I agree with you completely, James. It's really, really, really hard. I don't believe you can when you say you think Trump is bad. I really don't believe that you actually think that. And it's why you put okay at the end of it. I just don't think you believe it. You're just saying it because you think in this audience it's the right thing to say. But I hear this, I've heard this for now eight years. Yeah, yeah, Trump is awful, but he's awful, but I'm voting for him.  So, no, I don't believe it. And you wouldn't be cheerleading Trump the way you and others have, particularly in this audience, if you thought he was really bad. Andrew, objectives have a special knowledge of the relation between emotions and reason. In these volatile political times, we have a responsibility to separate feeling from fact and not subjugate our reason to fear. Yeah, I think that's true always, but certainly now. And it's certainly now is the time to stand up against the fear among green. Now is the time to stand up against Trump, even if you're going to vote for him. I mean, fine. You know, some people are going to vote for Trump because great of two evils or whatever, the least of two evils or whatever. But you should be attacking Trump 90% of the time, not in favor of Biden, but in favor of truth.  But if you're constantly defending Trump, if you're constantly defending the fear among green, if you're constantly defending the emotionalism, the tribalism, then you're part of the problem. And you've given up on reason and you've given up on facts and reality. Eric says, you're wrong about it, Tucker. Didn't you hear him say he's more of an American than the rest of us because his ancestors fought in the Revolution. He clearly understands what it means to be an American. Thank you, Eric, for the laugh. Yes, I heard that.  That's what makes you an American. What makes you an American is his blood. What makes you an American is his ancestry. What makes you an American. And this is completely consistent. Remember that segment of Tucker's that I showed you, what is it now? Two years ago, when you was at Fox, we asked what makes America special. And the two things that made America special were great scenery, America's beautiful and a respect for God. That's what made America special. And by that standard, Tucker loves America. He loves the scenery and he loves God. Or, you know, I don't know if he really loves God, but at least he pretends to. So yeah, if that's your understanding of America, then Tucker's a great American. And plus he has the bloodline. If you add the bloodline and God, Tucker's a hero. But that's exactly the opposite. It's exactly the opposite of what America actually is. It's exactly the opposite of what America actually is. Thanks, Eric, for the laugh. Andrew, what do you think about the fact that the uneducated are inclined towards Trump? It is the fault of the academic tower babble of the humanities that there's this political division between uneducated and educated. Yes, I mean, the educated, particularly the educated humanities, have been educated in completely another garbage, but that completely another garbage tilts them to the left, tilts them towards ideas of the left.  Their common sense doesn't lead them towards something positive. It doesn't lead them towards some positive outcome. It doesn't lead them towards positive values. It leads them just to say, that is crazy. I'm not voting for that. I don't believe in that. And then they're open for somebody to come and say, not to offer them principles by which to guide them, because I believe in principles, but to offer them emotions. We're more aligned. This is why the right embraces the things that common day average uneducated Americans believe in, the flag and religion. The flag with no meaning behind the flag and religion, which is authoritarian by its nature. That's what, you know, so again, Trump voters are old, white, uneducated and religious. I mean, not every one of them, but that's the majority of them. That doodle bunny, like begins at measurement omission. Like begins at measurement omission. All right. I'm not sure if the moments after birth, the baby is doing measurement omission yet. I'm not sure. At some point it does, but I'm not sure when exactly. Let's see. Jason, who needs guns when you get jellied eels and haggis? True. True. Haggis can be good. I've had good haggis in Scotland. I'm not anti-haggis. Jason, bad joke. Have fun. Stay safe. British food has improved immensely since the 90s. No one is going to get hurt. No, British food is amazing. It's international food. It's not really British food. But there's even good British food. There's a restaurant here called Dinner. Dinner by Alan Blumenthal, I think. It's called Blumenthal something. And it basically takes recipes from the 15th, 16th, 17th century England. And then he modernizes them. And he's a super modern chef. And it's just amazing. The food is just stunningly good. Yeah. If they knew in the 15th, 16th, 17th century that something good could be made of their awful recipes, they wouldn't believe it. But he does amazing things. Even British food, real British food, has been elevated to amazing status. All right. Liam, it is almost impossible to make political predictions. There are no crystal balls. They're all being smashed. I don't know. I mean, it really does look at this point like Trump, you know, unless something dramatic happens. Well, when, it's always been very, very difficult to make predictions about anything in the future. Try predicting stock prices. Michael, why are Jews more of a canary in the coal mine than other oppressed minorities like blacks? Well, partially because Jews have a longer history. They've been in a sense of being in the West at the birthplace of this particular civilization, call it. And being scapegoated from really from the crucifixion of Christ on. So Christianity has used the Jews to, you know, to scapegoat over and over and over and over again for 2,000 years. And it's been secularized. And it was secularized by Marx and it was secularized by the Nazis, the anti-Semitism. But it goes back to solid Christian roots in the first century after the birth of Christ. Certainly the first 100 years after the death of Christ. And certainly once Christianity became a part of the Roman Empire. And Constantine and then Justinius, who actually made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. All Constantine did was give it status as one of the religions of the empire. But he claimed he was a Christian, so it gave it an elevated status. But yeah, from that point, Jews were going to be persecuted and they have been and they continue to be. So in the West, they have a longer history. And partially is that you can't, the persecution is not because of how they look. So it requires a certain effort, I guess, to figure out who's a Jew and who's not. So it's less immediate in terms of the racism.  Not just anti-Semitism. Harper Campbell says, what is your evaluation of Nancy Pelosi?  She was very effective at manipulating power in her realm, which was the House of Representatives. But did it in the cause of statism and control over the individual and the negation of individual freedom and individual liberty in an evil cause. Evil woman. Evil, evil woman. You know, she doesn't buy into the crazy left stuff. But so what? I mean, but she was a power-lusting, manipulative person who has made America a worse place. Paul, whose policy towards Israel is better? Trump or Biden? Well, I don't know. We will see what Trump does. I don't know. You know, just based on Trump's four years versus Biden's four years, Trump's policies towards Israel were better. But I mean, the reality is that that says nothing about what his policies will be in the next four years. We just don't know. We just don't know. And it's impossible to say how he would have reacted to October 7th. It partially will depend on who he surrounds himself with. And as I've told you, I think that, as I've said many times, I think that the second term of Trump will be surrounded by much, much, much, much, much worse people than the first time. The first time he took who was available. And a lot of those people were basically good people. From the Energy Department to a lot of the regulatory agencies, the Defense Department to his, you know, Chief of Staff. This time, they will all be from the world of MAGA. And the world of MAGA is not good in Israel. It's not good in Israel, certainly not for the right reasons. So hard to tell. Hard to tell who you will choose and who will be there.  Israel doesn't matter. America does, says Rob beef.  Israel doesn't matter. America does. Maybe Israel matters because America does. Maybe there's a relationship. Maybe what happens in Israel matters to America. Maybe you can be America first and sell C beyond your nose. Maybe you can see the interrelationship between what happens in a geopolitical world. But maybe not. What do I know? I don't know. You know, one of these, hopefully some of you appreciate the patience I have. Michael says, would you say objectivism is a fringe movement or just a small movement? Small. I don't know what fringe means. Fringe is also irrelevant. I don't think it's irrelevant. I think, as I said many times, I think I already had a profound impact. But that impact is dying. That impact happened in the past and it's dying because of the change, the intellectual change in America. The unthinking is increased dramatically. I still think we have an impact. I still think we impact entrepreneurs. We impact think tanks. Everywhere I go, I still see people who admire Iran, who respect Iran, who read Iran, who engage with Iran, of all ages, of all intellectual levels. And it surprises me because people say, oh yeah, I know Iran's work. I know people I wouldn't have ever known. And we're going to have more impact. So we will see. Harper Campbell, do you like the idea of keeping an attorney on retainer in this crazy world? Are there any good attorneys on retainer programs you would recommend like Legal Shield? I don't have an attorney on retainer. Attorney is incredibly expensive. I've needed attorneys. When I need an attorney, I get an attorney. I'm not sure why I would want one on retainer. I guess if you're doing and dabbling in a lot of different businesses, then maybe, you know, I have attorneys for my different businesses. I just signed a big, thick contract I have to admit without attorney review. I don't know. It just seems like a lot of money to pay somebody when I think things can be handled, even in this crazy world, much better. On the other hand, in my business, everything is reviewed by, in my finance business, everything is reviewed by attorneys. We spend a fortune on attorneys. You have to. You don't have any choice. Jennifer asked, might you get a Mark Dolan show? Probably not, because I think it shows on Friday and I won't be here Friday night. But you know, thanks for reminding me, because I need to send another email to the GB News people to see if they have interest. I try to get a Piers Morgan. It doesn't look like they want me. I've tried to get a BBC. Nothing. We tried. I did get, I told you, two newspaper interviews that I think are pretty significant, the Telegraph and one other, I forget the other one. So that'll be next week. Michael says, are Trump voters motivated by nastiness? They want to see authoritarian thuggery take place. Some, not all, some of the base definitely have that sense. You see it in people like the Proud Boys and others, they're thugs. They're nasty and they want authoritarianism. There's a certain element within his base that definitely is motivated by that. Batali bni, something, I don't know, but British Pounds, they must be here in England. He says, keep up the good work. Thank you. I really appreciate the support. Iyal says, see you in Amsterdam. Thank you Iyal. I look forward to seeing you in Amsterdam as well. All right. We went now and a half, right. Didn't quite make our goal in spite of the $200 contributions and 150, but we did pretty well. So I'm pretty happy. Thanks everybody. Really appreciate the support. I'm going to try to do a show tomorrow. We will see how the day pans out. It'll probably be a little later in the day. So it'll probably be right now. What's the time right now? Right now, it's 11 p.m. here. I expect maybe a 10 o'clock, start the show here at 10 o'clock, so maybe half an hour later than what I did today. Yeah, have a great rest of your week and I will hopefully see you tomorrow. Not sure exactly what's going to happen Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, but tomorrow we will definitely try to do something. Talk to you soon. Bye everybody. Thank you.


Hello everyone, welcome back to Apple Bay. My name is Gonzalo and in this tutorial I will show you something really interesting, something I just found it with Bixar. Bixar, and I'll show you something. Restart the computer. Yes, the chime is back, the chime is back. Apple finally did it. After 4 years they put back the chime, so finally we'll know if our machine is starting or not. Yes, that's it. Thank you for watching. See you next time. Bye.


And youth took to the streets in Iketi state to commemorate the World Drug Day. The youth council called on the government at all levels to be more proactive in the fight against the menace. Speaking with Generalisa Chairman of the council, Shegun Famuyibo challenged the government to go after drug dealers. As affected due to generally, the intake of abuse of drugs, most especially those that are trafficked, those that sell it to our youth, are the most people we want governments to seriously manhandle. Because if these drugs are not being spread in all markets, it will not be easy for our youths to assess it. So the government and security agencies should work together and help us fish out those that do this drug business and get it across to our youth to siphon them one and by them taking it, it destroys their future and so many plans they have already made arrangements for themselves. My advice to them is that we are all aware what the fate of drug abuse, what it has caused to lives, and what it has caused to future generations. And the best thing is for them to take the advocacy to nook and crannies of the state to ensure that the campaign against drug abuse is everywhere in the state.


There's been a lot in the news about artificial intelligence, AI. And of course, at the rate things are changing, AI is getting more sophisticated. There's new technology like ChatGPT out there. And the questions arise, like is something produced by ChatGPT or AI, is it copyrightable subject matter? In other words, can someone get intellectual property rights in it? And the answer, if something is computer generated, is clearly no in the eyes of the copyright office. This comes from Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution where intellectual property rights are reserved for authors and inventors, human beings. Computers, robots do not qualify. So at least for now, humans won robots zero.


shine it and the answer was clear you know so why why do you want to talk someone okay there's online dating you know Tinder so easy right you just know someone's name know their profession or actually something related to what they do you know a city and you can pretty much come across their LinkedIn you can get to their Facebook or their Twitter if you're trying to date like an 18 year old hipster maybe their tumblr I don't know but okay that's the stalking one-to-one right but what about grand scale stalking okay so I have to say this talk is not going to be about how you can stalk your lover it's going to be about different research projects that have been going on in universities where people take all this data that is available and they try to infer things about people and some of the results are a bit creepy but also very cool and I think they give you some impression of the things you can learn from this data so the first the first project I'm going to be talking about is essentially I call it you are what you like and what was done by these guys Kosinski was that they took Facebook likes from a lot of users and they tried to infer some personal traits so this goes from pretty easy stuff like okay gender maybe your ethnicity that's not too hard to infer but gets a bit creepier so they they infer also the sexual orientation also whether you take drugs or you smoke and very weird stuff like are your parents still together by the age of 21 so little bit strange so and the cool thing is that a lot of these was very accurate so the first two things I mentioned so gender and ethnicity was actually very very accurate and all all the personal traits they try to predict are I think the lowest thing accuracy was about 63% which it's nice well nice they also try to predict some of more subjective things such as whether you are like an open person you're a competitive person and some some of these things so I'll just talk about their method very quickly and if you want more detail I would say okay you can refer to the paper we we can also you can also ask me during the the questions so essentially what they do is they have data from users right their Facebook likes and they also have some they also have data from the same people they took some tests like psychometric tests some IQ tests and stuff like that so these these services the validation so how is this done so essentially you have a huge matrix where you have all your users all the likes and then it's a well zero one entry matrix right so if you like something you have a one under your interest if not there's a zero and then what they do is a single valid decomposition so collapse the dimension of this thing and then trying to classify on this so they use linear regression for continuous variables and logistic regression for categorical variables okay so but these the most technical thing I'll be talking about I thought it would be interesting to show you some of the predictor variables that gave out the labels so okay if you find yourself liking RPGs fan fiction programming anime basically like all the stuff I like turns out we might be shy and reserved that's I mean this pretty it's not that strange right but okay if you like these things sounds like a pretty random list you might be spontaneous and also a serial killer screamo not dying it's awkward if you hate everyone hate you the police and when I totally did not write that down you might be a competitive person and this is my favorite the last one if you like walking with your friends and randomly pushing them into someone or something you might not have a lot of friends you know okay so there's the complete list on the link so if you want to check it out it's actually very fun there's a lot of interesting things there and again refer to the paper for more information so the second thing I'm going to be talking about is inference from mobile data so cell phones you know cell phones are used to communicate but you can also it's pretty much a tracking device right so essentially I'm going to be talking about two studies what the first one they try to infer just from cell phone data such as like call logs and location logs they try to infer relations between people whether they are from the same family their friends or co-workers and these pretty neat the way they represent these is essentially a partially label graph so some times people actually label these connections right on my phone I have brother has my brother so you could get the label from that but a lot of the times you don't label anything so the cool thing with what they did this was with 107 users they tracked them over 10 months and they their best predictor was actually around the accuracy of 83% so that's pretty neat the second thing is another study also using mobile data so what they try to do here is they ask people who work in the same place and they ask them whether they are friends with their co-workers or not and then they try to infer these labels from from what from what they said right so if it's not clear please shout so anyways what is the data that they have they have a call logs they have a cell tower IDs they have other devices in proximity they got tracked over nine months and also yeah they they had this quiz where they say whether this person is their friend or not and there's some interesting results from this so there's this is a bit hard to understand to see but essentially they came up with some variables to try to capture these these raw data right so they look at the proximity between people on Saturday night the phone communication whether like the proximity at work proximity outside of work and stuff like that so there's seven variables again you can get more information from the paper and what they do then they represent these in terms of a baseline so the baseline is they took the people who actually both said they were friends and they take that as your okay your maximum right and then you express all the other variables in terms of this baseline so for instance if if both people acknowledge that they're not friends like their communication is like less than five percent here like less than five percent of what they would communicate if they were friends so that's the idea and there's some pretty interesting things coming from this first is that you can predict the proximity of work by looking at the proximity at home you can also you can find the two best indicators of whether people are friends or not so by just looking at their externally at the communication outside of work between people you can pretty accurately determine whether they are friends or not but there is so okay so the picture here is that you can determine whether guys are friends or not or there but when there is the case the awkward case when one person says they are friends and the other does not acknowledge them there is something interesting going on because you sort of see traits of around the area of not being friends but also some things that actually exceeds the baseline of being friends with someone you know so this could just mean that friendship is not a categorical variable so I mean there's different levels of friendship so yeah it could be that it could be different types of culture or you know in scientific jargon this is what we like to call it the friend zone no but in all seriousness this is pretty I think it's pretty interesting I mean it's sort of obvious right if you're friends with someone you probably have a lot more communication with them but the paper goes on to to look at other things they also try to determine what is the most important thing in this data to determine friendship or not and also they relate this to the satisfaction at work so if you have a lot of friends at work maybe you will be more satisfied so for more information I would look at the paper so what happens with this so these sort of websites come out so there's these websites where it's pretty much called yeah you are what you like and you can log in with your Facebook and it looks at your Facebook likes and tries to tell yeah tries to come up with a prediction of what sort of person you are there's also something that's a bit more creepy which is called please rob me and basically looks at your Twitter and your Instagram no at your Twitter and your four square and tries to determine whether you're at home or not slightly weird I think it's closed down I hope and then there's this ultimate creepy thing which is actually not machine learning but I just felt the need to put it out there because it's this program where you can put someone's nickname from Instagram a flicker and Twitter and essentially just gives you the history of where they've been if they do geo tagging so you get a map and all the timestamps really creepy and awesome sort of anyways so what's the take-home message from this talk well when you go on an online date no just kidding now so be mindful of how much information you leave out there I suppose and also machine learning is really cool you can do a lot of stuff with this so yeah that's it thanks a lot for listening to this talk follow me on Twitter you can meet me on scriptogram or you can talk to me in real life so if you have any questions yeah hi there was this I just I was reading an article a few weeks ago that was about hi it was like this person had basically liked everything on Facebook they kind of liked every single thing and it kind of Facebook got really confused about what to show them in their feed and I was kind of interested in how those kind of DIY very simple hacks of these kind of machine learning researches like how does that tessellate with what you're with what you're interested in and what you're doing so yeah that was of course you're gonna have like so first I think the data set they use here they they try to use something that is nice right that if someone looked at that data point the person with all these likes they would probably label it as an outlier I don't know I'm not well aware of how the Facebook actually does machine learning I'm pretty sure they just try to like come up with like articles that's your friends liked right but yeah I suppose it's easy you can easily confuse it as well so I'm not I'm not really sure I suppose that if that guy's profile would enter these data sets you would easily be able to rule it out as an outlier because it wouldn't provide you any information I think yeah I hope that answered the question right thank you very much