The radical, fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights. This is The Iran Brookshow. All right, everybody. Welcome to Iran Brookshow. And this, yes, it's December 31st, the last day of 2023. Another one of those years, you could say, well, I'm kind of sorry to see it go on the one hand, because it means I'm getting older. On the other hand, good riddance. All right, welcome, everybody. You might notice my voice is a little off. That's because I'm sick. I've had a sore throat the last few days. This is probably the first time I'm speaking out loud. In like two days, I've been saving my voice for this. So we'll see how long I last. I do have my tea. I will be sipping it as we go along as to keep my voice intact. So hopefully this will go OK. But yeah, my throat has been burning for the last 48 hours or so. Hope you like the shirt, my holiday shirt. It's my island shirt, of course. So yeah, I thought we'd change it up a little bit given that it is our special New Year's Eve show. All right, so today I'm going to go over the big stories of the year. We're going to talk about a few themes. I think I've got four big themes in terms of content. I also want to talk about, we can also talk about movies. I've got at least one theme for 2023 in terms of movies, which I think is interesting. But I'm curious to know what you guys think and what impressed you in particular this year. Let's see, we've also got, we can talk about, beyond that, anything else you want. We'll also talk about the show. How's it doing? It's nice to get a summary kind of end of year, how we're looking in terms of the totality of the year. So we'll look at that as well. So we'll cover that. We'll talk about how the show is doing, views, subscriptions, things like that. We've got an insane goal for this show, which is to reach $12,000. I don't know if that's doable. We did it last year. I don't know if you're up for it again this year. But I figured we can't have a goal that's less than last year. And last year we also had a match. So on top of the 12, we had a $10,000 match on top of that. So we don't have that this year. But it's still the case, right? It's still the case that it's still the case that we're going to try to make it at least as good as last year, which means $12,000. But that's not up to me. Very little I can do about that other than stand here and keep entertaining you. That is up to you. So hopefully you guys can step up and really make it happen. It's going to take a lot of people. Hopefully people will be joining as we go along through the show. It's going to take a lot of people. It's an opportunity to use that money to ask questions. That way we'll get to cover more topics, because we'll get to cover topics you're interested in, versus topics that I have a proponent in advance or I'm interested in. So please ask questions, make comments, make suggestions. Make suggestions how to make the show better, how to increase viewership, get more subscribers, anything you want, or just how to tell me how I'm wrong in a variety of different ways. So there goes my voice. All right, hopefully it'll last. My plan is to go for as long as it takes, which is probably a long time. Jeffrey got us started with $20. Thank you, Jeffrey. And if he says happy new year, happy new year to you too. And congrats on the new restaurant. And congrats on having a great restaurant to begin with. Fred Harper says, how close to no commercials on the podcast are we now? We're still a long way. I mean, I haven't seen people send me money specifically for the purpose of no commercials. I can't remember what was the sum I said in extra 1,000 a month. We're just nowhere near that at this point. But we'll see. I've got all kinds of ideas for this year to raise revenue. We really need to raise revenue this year. This year, this show will be my source of revenue.  So we're going to really need to raise money. We'll see how that was. Fred Harper, don't ask questions without a super chat. Don't use your member privilege just for this. We've got a big goal today. Adam says, all right, here's our first challenge of the day. If we get 500 likes, I'm going to like the show just to add one to it. If we get 500 likes, Adam will do $500. If we get 1,000 likes, Adam will do $1,000. So that would get us a long way to where we need to be. So please like the show as we go through this. I'll remind you. But Adam has put a challenge out there to get to 500 likes. We'll see if we get 500 people. Too bad people can't do more than one like at a time. But let's try to make that happen. Thank you, Adam. All right, Jacob says 110% would recommend the most violent year I saw it last night. Thank you, Jacob. Glad you appreciate it. But next time, none of this will is doing the same thing. None of this comments with no dollars attached to them. We've got a big, audacious, ridiculous, massive goal that we're just not going to get to if you guys do that. Whatever amount you can, even if it's a small amount, put it in there so we can chip away and get there closer. Roosevelt, happy new year. Thanks, Roosevelt. I'm Mirkat. Happy new year. Lots of love. Best wish of all you guys. Furthermore, I am of the opinion that Gaza needs to be destroyed. I make it as being consistent since October 7th with regard to that. Stephen, do you think people who invest in the stock market or bet on horse races for a living are productive? People who bet on horse races, I don't think so. I don't see what the productive activity is. So many trading is a productive activity. To the extent that it's meaningful trading, to the extent that it's not just gambling, but actually investing and figuring out where to put your capital, where to put your capital, how to deploy your capital in productive endeavors is very much a productive activity. And if you're interested in a detailed explanation of why, you can look up my course on financial markets where I explain why investing in stocks is productive and why the value of a stock, the level of a stock is super, super important for the functioning of an economy, for the proper functioning of an economy and how that plays a massive role in our location of capital throughout the economy. Thank you, Stephen. All right, I'm going to have to stop answering questions because we want to get on. Willa says happy new year. Thank you, Willa. Tezi says cool shirt you're on. Thank you. I try to dress up for the holidays. Mary Eileen, thank you. $50, we really appreciate that. We're going to need a lot of $50 in order to get to where we need to get, but they're starting to come in. So Mary Eileen, you know, we need, how many of these do we need, right? We need $150, that'll get us just to 5,000. We need $200 to get us to $250. So we've got our first three. Mary Eileen says just to the sticker for 50. So thank you. Jennifer for $50 says leave out the fiction. The fact is this fiction will only be worn by persistence. Leave out conditions, courageous convictions will drag the dream into existence. Of course, that's Neil Pert. You know, when Jennifer is reciting poetry, it's almost always from Neil. Yeah, that leave out the fiction. The fact is that this fiction will only be worn by persistence. Leave out conditions, courageous convictions will drag the dream into existence. Pretty cool. Happy new year. Looking forward to your Michigan visit. Me too. That is in three weeks. Three weeks I'll be in Michigan for you. Michigan's, Michigan is in Michigan. Roland says just what black Addis Christmas Carol. It was hilarious. Thanks for the recommendation. Get soon better and have a very happy 2024. Nice shirt, by the way. Thank you, Roland. That's 50 Swiss ranks. That's fantastic. Thank you. All right. I will get to other questions as we go through the thing. Kev, thank you for the support. I'll be thanking stickers. And then we'll let the super chats accumulate a little bit as we go through this. All right. So I wanted to do a show reviewing kind of the big stories of 2023. I made a list of all the stories that I could think of that had some significance. I looked through different media outlets and what they thought were the significant stories. There was obviously some overlap, some not so overlap. And then I thought, okay, well, this is just a laundry list of stories that many of them we've already talked about. And many of them we've already talked about. And there has to be a theme. There has to be what puts this all together. So basically I came up with four themes that I think integrate much of integrated stories I wanted to talk about at the end of 2023. Of course, if you would like me to talk about other stories, if you would like me to elaborate on any of these, if you would like me to take a different spin on these stories, the stories that we have already here, then please feel free to do so. You can guide me in that direction by looking, by basically using the super chat. The four themes that I have is one, the theme of war. So we'll talk about war. The second theme is left and right continue their realignment. And we've talked a lot over 2023 about the left and the right and what they mean and how they are realigning and what that realigning might mean. So we're going to kind of summarize that in that context. We'll also talk about melee as kind of a non-left or right phenomena. Is that where we're going to find, if you will, redemption? Is that where we're going to break out of the kind of existing political mold which is so stifling and so just dead end? It's a dead end mold. The left versus right paradigm is a dead end paradigm. It leads nowhere. We achieve nothing by actually pursuing it. So we'll talk about that. A lot to cover there. We'll talk about left, right in the US. We'll talk about left, right in Europe. We'll talk about left, right in Latin America and some of the implications of all that. The third theme, these two last themes will be smaller, but the third theme will be on the economy and that is kind of the state of the economy, how we did in 2023 and where we move from here into 2024. All of this will include a few predictions of mine with regard to 2023. And then finally, another theme which I think is an important one, we got to end on a positive note after all and that is a positive theme and that is the theme of technology that in spite of everything, in spite of all the problems, in spite of all the challenges, in spite of all the horrors that our world throws at us, there are still men and women out there, there are still entrepreneurs out there, founders who are creating a new world that are constantly pushing us forward and constantly improving our lives and our quality of life. And I think this year was an important year with regard to a couple of these technologies and in particular with regard to maybe a few of these technologies. So we will talk about that and kind of maybe wrap up in that sense on a positive theme. And then I also want to talk about another theme which I think is really interesting. That is, there's definitely a theme this year of movies about business and positive movies about business. Like movies about business that portray businessmen as positive characters, as strong characters. So movies about business that actually you could say implicitly pro-capitalism. And that's unusual that I can't remember a year that comes anywhere close to 2023 in that sense and I'm going to give you a list of movies and succession is not one of them. And I said movies not TV shows. A list of movies that I saw, some of them I saw, there are a few I didn't see. But it's pretty astounding just the numbers of them. And maybe this is a new theme. Maybe there was something in the air, in the culture, in the cultural ideas. Maybe there's something related to Ayn Rand. And Ayn Rand's ongoing influence on the culture that is bringing these kind of heroes and these kind of people to the forefront. To the forefront. So we will talk about that as well. I also plan at some point, given that John is here. I'm glad you're here John. I hope you're going to stay for a while. Because I do plan also to review coherence. The movie you asked me to review with your last $500. John has just done $500. So John has taken us a big step towards our goal of $12,000. We're going to need a lot of John's today to get us to where we need to go, right? We're going to need 20 plus John's to get us to where we need to go. Or the equivalent of that. So thank you John. John says, Happy New Year, Yuan. I wanted to jump on and contribute to your end of year episode goal as well as to tell you that you have the best show on the internet. Thank you. I'm looking forward to another great and hopefully prosperous year for Yuan Book Show. Keep up the great work so it doesn't go unappreciated. Thank you John. So it sounds like you're jumping off. But I will be reviewing, if not today, the next show. I will be reviewing the sci-fi movie you wanted me to review by the name of Coherence. So that if unlikely today, I guess, particularly if you're not on. But I did watch it last night. So I'm in a position to review it. So hopefully in the next few days again, I'm sick. So I'm not sure exactly what the schedule is going to be. Certainly tomorrow, probably take the day off. But the rest of the week, I hope to get back to on a regular schedule. And we'll go from there. All right. And as I said, in addition to all that, in addition to the big stories and the movie and all of that, I will talk also about the show itself, how we're doing, how we're progressing, where we are, where we're heading, and stuff like that. We just got Go-D-R-D, God-R-D, God-R-D, something like that, one or the other. 50 bucks, and it's his first super chat on a live stream. So thank you, God-R-D. Even God is watching our show. That is terrific. And Hamid with $50 as well, and Ian with $50. So we're getting close to 10% of the funds raised to where we need to be. We just need to keep going at this pace. And within a few many hours, we will get to where we need to be. In any case, this is terrific. Really, really appreciate it. Thank you, guys. All right. So obviously, I think particularly at the end of this year, the theme of war is a major theme of 2023. And it's a sense in which I would say that good riddance of 2023, although this theme of war is unfortunately going to carry on into our future. In 2022, maybe the main story of the year was the Ukraine-Russia war, and everything that it implied in terms of, if you will, I think the perceived weakness of the West, the willingness of alternative powers, in this case Russia, to challenge the West. The support of China for Russia indicated China's willingness to challenge the West. And here the West, I would consider the kind of Western access in Asia, which is South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. Primarily Western Europe, but really all of Europe, including Eastern Europe these days, and the United States and Canada. China's support of Russia, kind of sticking finger in the eye of the West, indicating that they too were willing to step up to challenge what the West was doing, what the West stood for, what the West represented, and challenged it for, you know, not just economically, not just trade-wise, but now challenge the West militarily, or at least watch sympathetically, as Russia challenges the West militarily. And I thought, and that was of course the story of 2022. But I think it's set the stage for 2023, in which we are seeing that same interest in challenging the West, that view that the, if you will, the part of the world that is anti-Western, fundamentally anti-Western, fundamentally opposed to the West, the view that they have of a weak West, of a West that will not stand and fight a West that is rife with internal conflict, a West that has lost its identity, a West that has lost what it really stands for. And I think that the consequence of that is that you're going to see, and we're seeing more and more evil powers out there, more and more elements out there in the world willing to challenge the West. That is reflected in, obviously, Ukraine-Russia, but it was also reflected in October 7th, Massacre that led to the current war between Israel and the Palestinians, which has much broader potential in terms of a potential war with Hezbollah and now a stoppage of trade through the Red Sea with the Houthis. And of course behind much of this is Iran sitting there prodding Hamas, holding Hezbollah back, prodding the Houthis, holding something, playing everybody off of each other in order to achieve its long-term goals. And of course a war with Iran is quite likely possible. And that, again, is another area of significant escalation. Beyond that, sitting Russia, which has a deal now with Iran. Iran supplies Russia with weapons. Kind of it's a weird upside-down world where Iran is supplying the Russians with weapons. You would think it would be the other way around, but this is where we are. And of course China in the background, also sitting and watching this, again as an expression of China's view, it wants to see how weak the West really is, how distracted can the West really become, how spit out can the U.S., a military and the U.S. Navy be? Because China is clearly eyeing Taiwan. And China is sitting back and it's watching the world as, and in some sense, China, if you remember, it eliminated COVID-Zero this year. It's also engaged in a technological struggle with the U.S. But the fundamental story about China this year is a really weak economy. The fundamental Chinese story for this year is the fact that economically China is struggling. And a struggling superpower, if you will, a struggling nation with nuclear weapons is very dangerous. A struggling superpower with nuclear weapons might choose war to distract its population from the economic struggles that the population is experiencing.  I don't think China's interests are aligned with war. On the other hand, we know the dictator is unpredictable and she is ever more a dictator. We know that as the dictators use war to distract their own population from the challenges that they face from the economic pain that they might be going through. We know all this.  China is rife with all the indications of potentially going to war. Now, again, I don't think it'll happen. And the main reason I don't think it'll happen is I think that the Chinese leadership know that they are not necessarily going to win such a war and there's no interest for a dictator to engage in a war that they think they're going to lose. So, the Chinese will create a lot of buh-ha. They'll create a lot of noise around Taiwan. They'll create a lot of noise about technology, chips. You know, we saw what happened at the balloon episode. They will continue, as they continue to spy on the United States, to kind of rattle our cage, to try to induce us to make a mistake, to make a bad strategic move. They will constantly try to convince their own population that China is strong and China doesn't need the United States because the United States is weak. That is the pattern and that pattern will continue without a doubt in the months and years to come. But at the same time, I don't think they want a war. I don't think they can afford a war. And let me just say this. The one thing we learned in 2023 is at the end of the day, the weakness of the Chinese economy. Its real estate sector is in freefall. It's in collapse. The industrial sector is doing poorly. Exports, which are the heart of the Chinese economy, have been, for the last, I don't know, 40 years, have declined. And yet internal consumption inside China is still weak. Unemployment among young people in China is very high, something like 21% of adults between the ages of, what is it, 18 and 25, something like that are unemployed. 21%. You've got a whole generation of Chinese who are kind of giving up on the Chinese model. China is in deep, deep trouble economically. It can't afford a war. But dictators are unpredictable and they could very much launch a war in order to distract us from what is going on in the economy, distract their own people from what is going on in their own economy. All right. So I think war is a theme that is going to go into 2024. It's the escalation of the war in the Middle East. I don't see how the war in Ukraine is going to be resolved by the end of 2024. And the war in the Middle East could be expanded. I think by the end of 2024 it will be resolved. It'll be done with. Oh, Rob is reminding me. There's, of course, potential war in Venezuela between Venezuela and... Now, how do I pronounce this? Guyana. I think it's Guyana. Guyana in Brazil is there. The British have just put a battleship off the coast. Guyana used to be a British colony, so they feel some responsibility for Guyana's integrity, territorial integrity. Could there be a war there? The United States has been training with the Guyana military. Of course, Russia could be behind all this noise from Venezuela. Russia is an ally of Venezuela, as is China, as is Cuba. So it's just another area where there might be a war next year. And then, of course, we're watching China constantly. Quickly, on the Ukraine-Russia war, this year I think the big story was basically the stalemate that has been achieved on that front. In the fall of 2022, the Ukrainians made significant progress, kicked the Russians out of two major areas that they had occupied at the beginning of the war. And since then, nothing much has changed. Russians made some progress, if you remember, in Bakhmut in the early part of the year at the cost of, God, tens of thousands of troops. It was just a slaughterhouse. They've held on to some of those gains. They've lost others of their gains during the hyped-up, spring offensive, which was delayed and delayed and delayed because the West was not providing the Ukrainians with the weapon systems they needed. The spring offensive did not go as planned. It turns out that the Russians have spent the whole winter beefing up the defenses in ways that, for some reason, the West and the Ukrainians were not prepared for. Landmines, trenches, but mainly landmines, unbelievable quantities of landmines, landmines basically halted the Ukrainian advances. The Ukrainians as Ukraine did advance in a couple of places, in a few places, but they did not make a breakthrough, no significant breakthrough. And if you're following the last few weeks, the Russians, for some reason, like to throw a lot of men at insignificant targets in the dead of winter and watch them all die in order to gain a few meters of ground. And they're doing it again in eastern parts of Ukraine. And the Russians as a consequence are making very little, but they're making some slow progress. I expect next year, it's really hard to tell what's going to happen next year. What happens next year in Ukraine is completely dependent, completely dependent. By the way, we're past the 10% mark, so 90% to go, but we're past the 10% mark. We've raised over 1200 bucks. We've got a target of 12,000. It's a super ambitious target. It's a crazy target. It's what we raised last year, so I know it's doable if everybody shows up that showed up last year and is willing to kind of contribute as much as they did last year. We're going to have to have some people step in with hundreds of dollars. We'll see if they're out there and we'll see if they're willing and we'll see if they're supportive at the end of this year. You guys have been amazing throughout 2023, but in terms of Super Chat, this is by far the best year we've had. The question is, is there enough left to make today as big as it was last year? Also, I remind you that Adam has given us a challenge, you a challenge, not me, everybody, that if 500 people like the show, he will put in $500. If 1,000 people like the show, he would put in $1,000. Now, a couple of ways you can help with this. One is like the show. Just click the like button. It doesn't cost you anything. It's going to cost Adam, but it won't cost you anything. And the second is, you can go up on social media and let people know about the show. Right now, you can say Iran's live, come on over and increase the number of people who are participating. And hopefully, with the more participation, we'll get more likes and that will definitely help. We have 162 people watching live right now, so we've definitely had over 200 people watching so far because people come in and out. So we should have, in excess of 200 likes, we've only got 104. So just if everybody right now who's listening right now, all you have to do is click that like button before you leave. It doesn't cost you anything and it helps with the algorithm. And of course, it gets a good pal, Adam. It gets him to pony up significant dollars. So that's great. All right, Wes just came in with $500 to do a movie review. Thank you, Wes. We'll check that out later when I do the super chats. So thank you. So yep, we're slowly chipping away, guys. We're getting very close to the 1-6, the 2000 mark. So hopefully in the next few minutes, we will make it to 2000. And at that point, we will have just only $10,000 to raise. But if we do 2000 every 30 minutes, approximately, then in three hours, we get to where we need to be. It's a little below 3,000. We'll have to go four hours today. That's okay. I'm willing to go four hours. Thank you, John. Thank you for the sticker, John. Really appreciate that. Darlene, thank you for the sticker. Maria Lean, thank you for the sticker in addition to what you've already done. Catherine, thank you for the sticker. James, and yeah, we'll get to the rest of Chris. And we'll get, and Silly Corn, $50 in the sticker. Sean Wilson, $50 on the sticker. Kev, thank you. Yeah, and Maria Lean, I think I thanked her before for that one. John Parker, $50 now, and we've got a little bit more coming in. So we're just $15 short. Adam Campbell is, alright, he's doubling the amount of money he's willing to do. So if we get 500 likes, just three likes, thumbs up on YouTube. Adam will do $1,000 and if we get 1,000 likes, he's going to do $2,000. So please go out there, get more people to join us so we can get off of a bigger base. But we can hopefully get to those numbers and make it. So thank you. Thank you, Adam, and thank you to all of you who are going to like the show to help us get to where we need to be. Because I think we're going to need to get Adam up there into the numbers in order to make our goal today. So this is the kind of stuff that makes it fun. There's no match today, but basically Adam is matching your likes with dollars. Alright, $2 for every like. We need to get to 500. We're at 126 with 165 watching, going into it. Alright, we passed the $10,000 mark, so we've done the sixth, we've done one sixth, so slowly chipping away. Alright, just one more. I want to say a few more things about Ukraine, Russia, and then we'll talk about Israel. I think next year is going to be very hard to predict if the United States provides the aid that I still expect it to provide. And that means Republicans will have to get the act together and kind of deal with the Democrats to provide that aid. And I hope that happens in January. I hope it happens fairly quickly. And if the Europeans get their act together and provide the aid that they have promised and they have kind of worked on, then I think that combined aid will make it possible for the Ukrainians this spring to really have a breakthrough. Now, I know I predicted this last year, so for what it's worth, I also think, I also expect that in the next few weeks, the Ukrainians will get their first F-16s. I think in spite of what a lot of the military experts are saying on TV, I believe that the F-16s can be a game changer and can significantly help the Ukrainians defeat the Russians. And here I don't mean defeat the Russians in the sense of taking Moscow. I mean defeat the Russians in the sense of kicking the Russians out of Ukrainian territory. And whether that includes Crimea or doesn't include Crimea, that will probably be the piece to be negotiated afterwards. But to kick them out of all the territory they took in 2022, I think is possible. And I think that if the aid is provided, then Ukraine will actually achieve that. I quickly on the Israeli war, which I think is not going to last for the whole of the year. Israel is not facing an enemy like Russia, and Israel is facing enemies that it can deal with. You know, this is going to be, I think, super interesting to watch. Today, I just read before the show started that the U.S., Britain and one other country are going to have a press conference in a little bit to announce that they will launch offensive strikes against the Houthis in Yemen. I find it really interesting that the United States is at a point where now it has to have a press conference before it goes to war. After making an announcement, maybe they should have maps in the announcement and tell the Houthis exactly what targets they intend to strike so that the Houthis maybe can hide those targets or move them. It's just absurd. Why haven't they already stricken? Why not have the element of surprise on your part? It just shows that a lot of this is posturing and politics. So I do expect the Red Sea to open for trade in the weeks to come. And that the U.S. will be bombing targets in Yemen. I think with the help of maybe the Brits, maybe some other parties, it's hard to tell. I think the Saudis are going to hold back on signing a peace deal with the Houthis until they see what kind of damage the United States does over there. I do expect Israel to basically wrap up this phase of its operation in Gaza in the next couple of months, maybe sooner than that. Basically this phase is going to be taking the major city in the south, Hanyunas, and basically clearing it out of tunnels and clearing it out of Hamas and controlling the territory of Hanyunas. Clearing out the center of Gaza and that creating a whole section from northern Gaza to the south that is controlled by Israel. I also think that in the next few weeks you will see Israel completely clear out northern Gaza. It keeps saying it's done it, but it hasn't really. I think it's going too soon. It's going to get to that point soon where it will clear out the north of Gaza. And then there will still be elements of the Gaza command structure. There will still be many thousands of fighters who have moved into the tent cities that the UN is building, who have moved into Rafa, which is the very southern side of Gaza, where Israel has not indicated that they intend to invade. There are about a million Palestinians crammed into a very small space. At that point I expect Israel to move to a more tactical operations where they attack Hamas occasionally rather than constantly in a constant flow. You'll also see more negotiations, more pressure to negotiate and more focus on a long-term solution. At the end of the day, I don't expect the Hezbollah to launch a full-blown attack on Israel. I don't expect Iranians to want that. Iran is afraid of what that would mean to Iran. I expect that Israel will not preempt unless it is significantly provoked. And I think Hezbollah is going to try not to provoke completely. So I think that Hezbollah at the end of this war will still be in a powerful situation in the north of Israel, will still constitute a significant and substantial threat to Israel. I think it's going to be interesting to see how the residents in the northern cities of Israel view returning to their homes, which they've been evacuated from, given that it is likely that Hezbollah is still going to be there on the border as active as ever. Maybe, maybe that pressure from the residents of the north will get Israel to engage in military operations to push the Hezbollah away from the border and to, as I've said, to the Litani River for the north in Lebanon. We will see. We will see. So a lot to monitor there. Of course, there's the West Bank and then there's the big question of 2024 is going to be, what kind of political solutions is Israel going to accept with the Palestinians? As I've said, I do not expect Israel to do what I would want them to do. I do not expect Israel to win this war unequivocally. That would be amazing. That would be terrific. But I think, unfortunately, it is going to be unlikely. So in 2024, we'll keep our eyes out on the war in Ukraine. We'll keep our eyes out on the war on Israel. You'll keep getting commentary from me on a regular basis on both of those. And of course, we'll keep an eye out on what's going on in China and whether there are any indications that China is ready to launch campaign against Taiwan to engage in proxy wars with the United States or anybody else elsewhere in the world. I have my doubts. I don't think China's ready yet. But who knows, right? Who knows? All right. Let me look through this. We've got 1,500 from West. West says, movie review, weathering with you. It's an anime film, so not your normal cup of tea. But I think you might enjoy. I recommended the English dubbed version. It's very good. Thanks for another great year of content. See you at Ocon 2024. That's $500 from West, and West has of course been a fantastic supporter of the show throughout the year. So thank you, West. And as I've also said, we're going to need quite a few of these $500 contributions in order to get our targets. So hopefully there are more of you out there who are willing to do like John and now West who are willing to do $500 either for a movie review or just $500 so we can make a target of $12,000. We're getting very close to $2,500, which is a nice round number. It would be fantastic if we could get to, what is it, $4,000 in the next 15 minutes, which means 1,700 in the next 15 minutes. That's a lot of money. But Mike just put $500, so maybe we can make it. Okay. Yeah, let's do Mike. Mike says, value for value you're on. Happy new year. And thanks for continuing Battle for Liberty. Thank you, Mike. And we will continue. I'll give you plans. I'll tell you plans for the show for 2024. A little later in the show, we'll talk about what the plan is for next year and plans for expansion and growth. But everything we did in 2023, I expect we will continue to do and more. But a lot of brainstorming in the next few months about ways to expand the show, ways really to get more subscribers. We need to get more subscribers. The last three months will be terrific in terms of subscribers. This month will be over 500. Last month was over 500 new subscribers. We need to be able to make that the minimum monthly gain. We need a lot more than that. And I think I have a somewhat of a strategy for that. I'm trying to figure out what caused the spike the last couple of months. I think I know what it is. We'll talk about that in a little bit. All right. So as I said, one big theme for this year was war. The second theme, which has huge implications domestically, and of course is driven to a large extent by domestically, but it really is, I think, ultimately an international theme, a theme that is playing itself out on an international scale, particularly in Europe, but it's also interesting what's going on in Latin America. Is this the realignment of left and right?  But I think there's been a real realignment. I think Trump was the beginning of it, but it's not just in the United States. It's really across the Western world. The right has become more statist, more populist, more xenophobic, more nationalist, and I'd say more religious. So that's the realignment on the right. You're seeing a big chunk of the right. I'd say a majority of the right now. Rally around nationalism, religion, anti-immigration, which goes with the nationalism, central planning, and government control, kind of in a fascist, not socialist way of the means of production. And that, I think, is a new alignment of a right. Also, isolationism, non-interventionism. Let the world burn. And that partially explains the reluctance of Republicans to support Ukraine right now. The left is also realigned. And in the left, I think, in many ways the left is splintering. The right is realigned basically by dropping capitalism and by dropping what used to be called national security hawks. The right has dropped the national security hawks and they've dropped what they used to call Republican libertarians, the free market types. What they've embraced, again, religion, nationalism, and nationalism which incorporates anti-immigration and central planning. The left, but that's a majority. That is what the right today is. That is a majority of the right. The left, on the other hand, I think is splintering. I think the left is splintering into a minority which is in control of our cultural institutions. And the majority who tends to vote for the Democrats and tends to think of themselves as liberals, liberals in the American sense, and left wing. So the left has split itself into a woke left, called it a woke left, a far left, and a liberal left. And the far left is woke. It's CRT. It has socialist leanings and economics, Bernie Sanders leanings and economics, although not owning the means of production, again, more fascist than really socialist. The far left is anti-Israel, violently, vehemently anti-Israel. And is pro-much of the essence of woke, it's pro-identitarianism. They're racists. Now, I think this part of the left is the smaller part of the left. However, it is the left that controls the intellectual high ground. These are the intellectuals of the left, the intellectuals of the left. And as such, these are the people that kind of set the philosophical framework, the philosophical context of the left. So what you have here is they are often some kind of la-la land. Most of the Democratic Party and most of what were considered liberals reject the far left. And what you're seeing is a real split in the Democratic Party. And it's come really into light as a consequence of the war in the Middle East, the war in Gaza. That is, the traditional leftists, many of them Jewish, the traditional leftists are pro-Israel. You see the anti-Biden's response. And yet the new left, the new, new left, given that Ayman talked about the new left in the 1960s, but it's a very similar left to the 1960s left, the new, new left is violently anti-Israel. It hates Israel. It despises Israel. And this is just one dimension by which they have splinted. DEI, the new left, is DEI, loves DEI, thinks DEI is everything. The old left is, you know, merit. We still believe in merit. Yeah, we need to help minorities that are really struggling and maybe we needed to help blacks after civil war, after civil rights. But DEI is not sustainable. DEI is out and DEI is discriminating against Asians and Jews. And that's not right. The old left, the new left rejects Marx, rejects the whole paradigm of Marx. They rejects classes. They reject the emphasis on class. They reject the inevitability of history. They reject most of Karl Marx's epistemology, most of Karl Marx's economics. The new left is far worse than Marx. The new left makes Marx look respectable. The new left is fundamentally egalitarian. They want complete equality of outcome. Now they're far more aligned with Pol Pot than they are aligned with Marx. They're far more postmodern, whereas Marx is not postmodern. And what you're seeing is a fragmentation of the left, a fragmentation of the left that I think will continue and will weaken the left dramatically. And here I think the best illustration of this is the fact that today in Europe, and I'm curious what the Europeans think about this, but I was thinking about this today, I've told you in the past that there's no real left in Israel. There's a very weak left, a left that really has no political power, stands for nothing. And in terms of, for example, a relationship with the Arab world and a relationship with the Palestinians, they have no voice, they have no significance. And even economically, socialism is out. Socialism is not embraced by really anybody on the political spectrum in Israel. I mean, a few political parties that have no political power at all. At all. What is interesting about that is that we're starting to see the same thing in Europe. We're starting to see the same thing in Europe. We have right-wing governments now in a significant percentage of European countries. You know, Germany has nominally a left-wing government right now, but they are so low in the polls that when an election happens in a year or two, they're going to get crushed. And there will be, one way or the other, a kind of a central-right government in Germany. And indeed, it might be very difficult to form a government in Germany without the far-right, you know, semi-fascist political party in Germany.  There's no energy behind the left in Spain. You know, the whole leftist Spanish government survives barely. And indeed, if the right had been a little bit more strategic, they would have won the last election. Huge, massive errors that they committed towards the end of that election cycle that prevented them from winning outright. There is no left in France today. Basically, the competition is between the center, Marcon, or whoever replaces Marcon in the center, and Le Pen and the far-right. That's it. Conservatives are finished, and the left is finished in France. Basically, the movement on the why is in Europe is not woke. It's not leftist. It's not Marxist. Basically, the competition we have today. Oh, God. Let's see. We have spammers. Let's see if I can block this one side. I don't want to do that. Hideous on this channel. We saw the election in the Netherlands. We're going to see more elections next year. But what this realignment, this populist anti-immigration, anti-capitalism, anti-free market right really is on the rise. And it's on the rise in Europe. It's definitely on the rise in the United States. Whether it has any sustaining power, it's hard to tell. How much of it is linked to particular personalities and particular issues, hard to tell. But the one thing that I think is true, even of the United States, is that is that the appeal of the far left is in decline. Even among people on the left, the appeal of the far left is in decline. And indeed, the left as a political power in Europe is dying. It's dying. Spain might be the last election in Europe where the left wins. I mean, Scandinavia is ruled by right wing, right of center governments, and it's only moving to the right. The battle in Europe today politically is a battle between the center, which is mostly considered center right, and the far right. The battle politically in Europe today is between different elements of the right. There is no left. And because the right has so abandoned freedom, certainly in the economic realm, because the right has become so nationalist, religious, even places like Scandinavia, religious, because the right has become so anti-individualism, I'd say the better element today in the world is the boring center. The right embraces the mixed economy with more government intervention than the center does. Now, I don't think the center can win, certainly not long term, but the center is saner than the right. The center believes in trade. The center believes in semblance of free markets. The center believes in greater immigration, not restricting immigration and legal and illegal. The center rejects religion for the separation of state from economic, from religion. The center, the boring center, who I've always condemned, is now much more appealing than the right, because the right has gone in a statist, collectivistic direction. And that's true in Europe, it's true in the United States, it's true in the United States. Alright, quickly on the US, I think 2013, the number one story politically in 2013 is the dominance of Trump over the Republican Party. I mean, I think a lot of people entering 2013 were hopeful. I know Scott was hopeful that the Santas would be Trump. Other people were hopeful that anybody would be Trump. There was real hope that Trump would fade. Some people thought that all the indictment against Trump would actually have an effect on his popularity. It had an effect. It seems to have made him more popular among Republicans.  There is nobody who is challenging him. There's nothing, you know, there's no conceivable way, it seems right now, that Trump can lose this election. So I think the big story of 2023 is in spite of four indictments, criminal indictments, Trump is dominating the Republican Party in spite of the fact that he says ridiculous, absurd, crazy, nutty, insane things. He still is the, by far, not even by a little margin, but by massive margin, the preferred candidate of the Republican Party. I think that's the most important political story. I think the other big political story is that Biden doesn't exist, that Biden is a non-entity, that Biden is not there. Biden was old three years ago, he's super old now. His mind is not there. I don't think he can beat Trump. If I had it that way now, if it's going to be Biden versus Trump, I think Trump wins. Which does not make me happy to say. But I think that's the reality. I think the war and the Biden administration response to the war in Israel has weakened Biden. I think that a lot of Arabs will not vote for him. A lot of American Arabs. A lot of Jews will not vote for him because they associate him now with a far left. They see how hateful the far left is, not only of Israel, but how anti-Semitic the far left is. And do the Jews want to be in the same political party as all these anti-Semites? They don't want to be in Trump's party, but do they want to be in the left? They want to be with the left, so many of them might not vote, which will help Trump in a few states like Georgia, maybe Arizona. Europe will continue to march to the right. The only part of the world, this is interesting. The only part of the world, I'm losing my voice. The only part of the world where the left is strong. The only part of the world where the left dominates politics is South America. From Mexico all the way down to Brazil and even Chile, the left now is a dominant player in Latin America. Now, this is the thing though, that it's starting maybe to turn. And this is, I think, the importance of melee winning. Chile maybe is the most interesting of these, right? So Chile was free market, not right in the conventional sense, free market. They lost. The socialists came to power and also committed to writing constitution, new constitution, replacing the constitution. They did that. They proposed a leftist constitution. The people rejected it by a big margin. They came back and they proposed what you'd call the new right conservative, again, kind of nationalist, conservative religious constitution. The people rejected that and Chile is left with a free market constitution it always had. So maybe Chile is telling us something about the direction of Latin America. Like maybe Latin America is ready to reject the left, but also to reject the nationalist right as reflected in Bolsonaro and in the constitution in Chile. They just turned down. And maybe melee's victory is a third way. Because melee is clearly a rejection of the conventional conservatives. You ran against them, beat them. It's a rejection of nationalism. It's a rejection of tariffs. It's a rejection of all of the rights agenda. He's not libertarian right at all. He's support of Israel. The libertarian right hates Israel. He's a massive support of Ukraine. The libertarian right hates Ukraine. He's a supporter of immigration. The libertarian rights hates immigration. He's a supporter of free trade, lowering tariffs to zero. The libertarian right hates that. So no, he's not libertarian right. He's libertarian. He's anti-abortion on one issue. You've got it. One issue. It's an important issue, granted. But even there, he hasn't said he'd impose it. He said he'd take it a referendum. He's fundamentally individualistic. He's fundamentally identified individualism. As the core, the libertarian right rejects that. It maybe talks that, but that in policy, in action, it rejects it. Fundamentally, Mille is a free market guy. He's neither right nor left. He rejects both right and left. That's what makes him so interesting. That's what makes him so good. People have asked you on, but you don't like libertarians. And I don't. And I still worry about how this plays out. But this guy's smart. And if he knows one thing, he knows his economics. And he's a free market guy. Is he going to be being about anarchy to Argentina? No. He likes Rothbard. I know he likes Rothbard. Everybody has his flaws. And Rothbard, if you just study his economics, he's good. He's a good student of Mises. He gets it. His economics are not ridiculous. His politics, his morality, his ethics, his philosophy, is where I disagree with Rothbard, not on the pure economics. Some of the economics I disagree with as well, his opposite effectionalism of banking, stuff like that. But Mille shows no indication that he agrees with the wacky stuff on Rothbard. Now, maybe he does. I don't know him well enough. We'll find out more on Thursday when I have an economist from Argentina on the show to discuss Mille. But I think there is real hope here because of his focus on what's important, individualism versus collectivism, and in particular how it's an application to economic liberty. He is well qualified to do this. He knows economics. I mean, God, I don't know if you guys have seen his videos where Mille explains and explains why free trade is good. Free trade is good, right? Chuck Lee says Rothbard rules Mises University in its own place to go. And yet, here you are, Chuck. Here you are on a show which despises Mises University, Mises Institute, not Mises himself, who I think is the greatest economist ever, and despises Rothbard. And here you are wasting your time. It's pretty bizarre, given that they rule. So I think Mille politically is the only, the only, really the only, kind of positive thing going on in the world right now. I think it's exciting. I think it's interesting. It could be that other South American countries pay attention and maybe, now Mille has a unique character and he gained a massive following by being an outspoken kind of crazy man on media and whether any other country can find somebody like that, right? Somebody of that who can pull that off. I don't know.  And of course, if he's successful, who knows how Latin America evolves and moves. Remember, Latin America is unique in that it's already tried the populist right. It's already tried the far left. It's done Marxism. It's done fascism. It's done them all. And they've all failed as we all know they have to. This liberty thing. They haven't done that in well over 100 years. Maybe they should try that. Maybe it's an opportunity. Mille might be, we'll see, might be setting a new path for Latin America. Let's hope, I think that's the real positive. All right, two other political topics and then we'll go on from there. We'll take a break and do some super chats and then we'll go on to economy and technology. The two are anti-Semitism, which is a consequence of the war, which is truly striking and truly stunning of a phenomena. The extent of anti-Semitism on the left shouldn't really be surprising, but I think it surprised a lot of people, particularly liberal Jews. That is going to realign the left. Part of the things that are going to cause the left to realign is this anti-Semitism. And of course, the other trend is this migration on the southern border, the so-called migration crisis, which is going to give power to the right. And of course, so anti-Semitism on the left is splintering the left. Migration is going to increase the appeal of the right, but there's a counterbalance to that in terms of the appeal of the left is abortion, which obviously a significant majority of this country supports, which is a backlash against the right. How all that plays out is going to be fascinating in this coming election year. So 2024 is going to be a fascinating year. If the Democrats had any sense, they would drop Biden and bring in somebody to replace him, somebody younger, somebody more dynamic, somebody could talk about abortion, somebody who could be tough on migration, who could say some tough stuff on migration where they meant it or not, somebody who could smooth over the, you know, make enough of the liberal left believe that the anti-Semitism is a fluke. It's not real to get them to come back to the Democratic Party. They need to dump Biden. If they don't dump Biden, then I think that, and nothing happens in terms of Trump, then Trump becomes president. Now, there is a chance that Trump drops out because of all these legal cases, but I just don't see it given the overwhelming majority he has within the Republican Party. And I think he wins. I just don't see how he loses given how unpopular Biden is and given how good Trump is on playing on American fears. The only thing that can say Biden, the only thing that can say Biden is a unbelievably robust economy next year. See, if the economy is really doing well by every dimension, including wages, then maybe Biden is saved. But that's the only thing that can say Biden. Nothing else can save him. Basically, I can't see how he can be Trump without a massively robust economy. All right, remind everybody, if we reach 500 likes, then Adam has said he will contribute $1,000. That would go a long way to getting us to our goal. So, 500 likes. So, we've got 199 people. We've been floating with 200 people watching the show. That should provide, you know, plenty of people. So, we've got over 500 people watching the show going in and out. If all I'm asking is you do something really, really simple and that is click that like button. It doesn't cost you anything. It's really easy. It helps with the algorithm. It doesn't affect your status on YouTube.  If you click the like button, we can push this number up. Maybe we can make 500. That would be amazing. But basically, every time you click on that, you're increasing the odds that we, you know, get $1,000 later in the show. So, please consider doing that. Adam has repeated that challenge. Also, you know, you've probably noticed we have a very ambitious super chat challenge for this show. The biggest we've ever had. Although this is a number we made last year, which is $12,000. We're at $5,000 right now. We're a few dollars short of $5,000. So, we're on track, believe it or not. If in the next 20, if in the next 13 minutes we can do another thousand, we'll definitely be on track. We should be hopefully at $6,000 halfway at $330 my time, $230 East Coast time. That'll be, you know, for a three-hour show, that'll be halfway and it'll be half the dollars raised. So, we're generally on track. And if maybe I will go four hours to get the goal. But we do need $1,000 in the next 12 minutes to keep on track. If anybody planning to do a $500 super chat, now is a great time to do it. Maybe we can get two and we can get to the halfway mark. All right, let's see. We've got a bunch of fifties. Let me see if there's any hundreds or above. There's a hundred. All right, let's do Dave. Dave said, it baffles me that we have all the information available online to learn anything for free. But you have to pay $30,000 a year to your some professor. $30,000 a year sounds cheap. A year to your some professor explain everything so poorly that you end up learning it all from your own book show anyway. Happy New Year, brother. Yeah, I mean, I think we're getting close to a real revolution in education. And this is part of the theme of technology. I do think that without official intelligence, you'll get not only the ability to take a course online, but you'll also have the ability to have a tutor. A lot of the AI startups are focusing on developing artificial intelligence tutors for individuals. So you would have your individual tutor helping you, helping you figure out what you know, what you don't know, and helping you navigate the material. Because one of the advantages of having a professor in a classroom life is you can ask questions and you can help navigate it through. Well, an AI will have that ability, at least for certain subjects and certain topics. And generally, I think technology is going to change the dynamics of all of that. But yes, you can learn a lot of things today online. Certainly a lot of the technical skills can be learned online quite easily. And then, of course, yes, you can come to your own book show and learn a lot about the state of the world and what's happening in the world right here. So basically for free, although some of you generously contribute to the show and help make the show happen and make the show run. So really, really appreciate that. Don't forget, like the show, like the show, we need to get to 500 likes with 189. I think my thing lags. So maybe with more than 189. Anybody out there know how many likes we have? Maybe you guys have it better. All right, a better number. All right, thank you, Dave. Thanks for all the support during the year. Really, really appreciate it. It was good to see you earlier this year in New York. Donna, this is the stickers. You can do a sticker. You don't have to ask a question. As some of you know, I'm sick. So I don't have a voice. It's any minute it could go. Rob said there are 203 likes. That's terrific. We're almost halfway to the 500. We need to make 500 likes. You know, go sign up and get new accounts and come on over and like the show so that we can get that number up. All right, let's see. Shrugs, $50. Thank you, Shrugs. That's amazing. Thank you. Donna, thank you. Equal to reality. Thank you. Fran Casey, thank you. Let's see. Who else did a sticker? Who I haven't thanked yet? I'm trying to thank everybody today. Daniel, thank you as I do try every show. Dennis, thank you. All right. I think Ron, thank you. And Apollo Zeus, I think that is all the stickers. Okay, let's do more of the super chats. So we've got 800, basically $900 to go. In eight minutes, I don't know, that's going to be tough. $800 in eight minutes, $900 in eight minutes. That's going to be quite an achievement. All right, to keep on track. Of course, this is a lumpy process. It doesn't always happen. Let's see, Jacob, $100. Thank you, Jacob. I'm going to become a global technology owner of an innovative machine in manufacturing. I've realized this type of engineering is my passion. That's great. Any recommendations on how to become the best in the world. I was going to state this to my boss and ask for their help. You know, it's hard for me to tell you how to become the best in the world without really knowing what it is that you do, but figure out who the best in the world is today. Try to find the best people in this doing what you're doing in the world and learn from them. Try to meet them, try to get their books, whatever it is, get exposed to them. Find ways to get their knowledge, to figure out what is going on that makes them as good as they are. Invest in that. Really devote yourself to figuring out who the best people are and what they do to be the best. And then emulate them. Learn from them. You know, generally find all the people who are great, maybe not the best, but great at what you do. And with each one of them figure out, okay, what makes them great? Certainly ask your bosses, ask your coworkers, ask people in the industry, try to figure out who's great. So learn and then, you know, apply and try to figure out what's your comparative advantage. What is it going to take for you to be better than the best? And remember, it's not a competition. It's not about being better than other people. The end of the day, what's important is to be the best that you can be, to really maximize your capabilities, to really be the best that you can be at this. And if that makes you the best in the world, great. But if that only makes you third best, that's fine too. You're being the best that you can be. And that should always be a focus. It's not about competition. It's about being productive. It's about being using your mind as effectively and as productively as possible. Be the best that you can be. Focus on that. All right, let's see. Any other hundreds? Oh, Skyler. Sky, Skyler Saunders. 500 bucks. Thank you, Skyler. When you professed, that was a professor, how often did you discuss the state of Delaware's friendly business atmosphere and the reality of its credit card capital of the world, chemical capital of the world, corporate capital of the world that also features over half of the Fortune 500 companies, also in corporate in Delaware. I did discuss it on occasion. And primarily, I actually did a whole research project around it because my PhD dissertation was on an issue related to corporate liability and related to the whole issue of Delaware. Delaware basically has the most pro, the most business-friendly courts, courts that are generally friendly to management. Not necessarily best to shareholders, but the most friendly to management. And that's why corporations incorporate it because they know that in the courts in Delaware, they'll be treated well. So, you know, a big reason why Delaware is what it is, is because of its court system, it has a bunch of state laws, even though it's a tiny little state, has a bunch of state laws that are very business-friendly, which is not necessarily capitalism-friendly, but they're all very business-friendly. And in that sense, Delaware is the best state in the Union for that. All right. So, if our 100 says Happy New Year, thank you, Volta, really appreciate it. Tony for 200. Let me just see something one second. Yeah, I lost a thread. Okay, Tony for 200. Thank you, Tony, $200. That's incredible. Thank you, a great show. Happy 2024. Yes, all looking forward to 2024. Really appreciate it, Tony. Let's see. Gene for $100. The wife and I loved all your movie and show recommendations this year. Here's a scholar super chat for the scholar Pimpinel. Thank you. Love the scholar Pimpinel. Here's our movie recommendation. If you like the scholar Pimpinel, see if you can find, it's not easy to find, but see if you can find the scholar, not the scholar Pimpinel, Pimpinel Smith. Pimpinel Smith is the same story as the scholar Pimpinel, set in World War II, and it is fantastic. It is directed by Leslie Howard, the lead actor in Scholar Pimpinel and in Pimpinels with Leslie Howard. Leslie Howard was killed over Europe in a plane. He was an intelligent military intelligence during World War II, but he was a phenomenal actor. Pimpinel Smith, he directed and acted in it, and it is a wonderful movie. If you can find it, very, very difficult to find. James Taylor, $400. Thank you, James. And by the way, we just crossed $6,000, which basically means we're halfway to the goal and at exactly at the hour and a half mark. We're halfway to the goal at the hour and a half mark. I don't know if there's still enough superchatters out there with deep pockets to make it possible for us to get to the goal. I hope so, but we are keeping track. So we are halfway there, $6,121. So you guys keep coming in. This is great. James says, when reading The Fountainhead, I saw myself in Peter Keating, not when it comes to politics. I was always firsthand at there, but when it comes to my status and reputation in terms of career, what kind of car do I drive, et cetera? I haven't been able to figure out why I was first-handed in certain ways and thinking and not in others. You know, it's hard to tell why, but there were a lot of... I think it's not surprising, right? It's not surprising. The fact that you hear suggests that you were first-handed in some ways and the first-handedness was in some way in the background always and was something that, when given the chance, you embraced. So, look, we are all, particularly when you grow up, we compartmentalize to some extent. We have things that we might be more interested in and more focused on and in those we might be more first-handed. We accept in other realms of our life we can just cruise and it's no big deal. And I think that that's just given the mixed world in which we live, given the way we're raised, given the signals we get from the world outside, so much of the world out there is sending us the conscious signal of conforming or measuring yourself against others. I mean, the question before even was, how can I be the best in the world at something which, again, sets you up as the best versus other people versus the best that you can be, which is what you should always be focused on, doing the best that you can. You might not, and most of us are not going to be the best in the world at something. There just can't be that many bests in the world of. In an irrational society, very few people will be the best in the world, but in an irrational society, a lot of people will be the best that they can be. And as a consequence, they will achieve happiness, they will achieve self-fulfillment, they will achieve flourishing. And that's what we should strive for. And that kind of sick first-handedness in a culture that doesn't really value that is hard to attain by yourself. All right, let's see. I'm just checking the $100 ones and then we'll go back to the 50s. We've got Art Lens Design who says, thank you for the awesome show. Happy 2024. Thank you, Art Lens Design. $100, that's amazing. Thank you, thanks for the support. Troy, who's an amazing supporter, clearly one of the largest supporters of the show and consistent and always there, really, really appreciate this Troy. Troy Talaysian really got us into the show Sponsorships, which I think was the first one to sponsor shows back in 2020, or 2021. But thank you, Troy. He says, Happy New Year to all the Uranimos. All right, so that's $500 Australian dollars. We chip away, we keep chipping away. Thanks, guys. Shazbot, $500. I think it was Shazbot that got us over the $6,000. Please review the movie. Oh, God. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Thanks. Sorry if my movie requests are less than ideal sometimes, but at least I don't ask you to watch Pink Flamingos. Happy New Year. All right, thank you. Thank you, Shazbot. I can't remember the movie. I know I've seen it. I know I didn't like it, but I will watch it again. Maybe I'll like it this time, so I will watch it. I really appreciate all the support, all the reviews you've inspired, and yes, again, one of the most significant supporters of the Iran Book Show over the last few years. Let's see. It's time to remind everybody that if we get to 500 likes, Adam is going to contribute $1,000 to the show and help us get to our target, right? We need help. So it would really be great if we got it. And the beauty of the likes is it doesn't cost you anything. It just costs Adam, right? So every like you make is potentially $2 that comes from Adam. Let's get to 500 likes. We're at, I don't know what we're at because mind is not refreshing. Maybe you guys can let me know where the likes are at this point. I just refreshed with 225. So, you know, we're less than halfway and we've got 200 people watching. And I know that a lot of people left and come in and left and come in. So we've had easily 500 people watching the show so far. So just if everybody, when they come in or before they leave, just blesses that like, I don't want to bug you constantly about it. But that will make it possible for us to really make our numbers as if we get that like. For every like that you do, if we get to 500, $2. So 500 is $1,000 which would be enormous in getting us to our ridiculously crazy goal of $12,000 for this show. So we'll see if we've got another $6,000 in you guys. If there's enough excitement, enough energy and enough deep pockets out there to make that happen. We will see. All right, 213 watching right now. As I said, don't forget to like the show. As you come in and out, we need to get those likes up to 500. It doesn't cost you anything. And it helps with the algorithm. It helps with the algorithm. It helps with the dollars. So please make sure if you're listening right now, just make sure you like the show. And if you haven't, just click that button. It's easy. All right, Ian says, 50 bucks. Thank you, Ian. With the disappearance of Zoop in 2023, companies are focusing on being profitable instead of just growing. Do you think this will be a positive force in 2024? Or will it disappear as interest rates come back down? Look, I think even if interest rates come back down, I hope they don't go back down to zero. I hope that interest rates start mimicking rational levels or start mimicking market levels, market levels. And that will be, and then if interest rates are reflecting a real rate of interest, which is somewhat approximating some kind of supply and demand for money, for loanable funds, then I think you will get companies being more rational in the way they deploy capital in order to maximize profitability, not just growth. A 0% interest rate environment is massively distortive. Inflation is massively distortive. Can we get away from both of those is going to be the challenge that we face next year and into 2025. Thank you, Ian. Dowel, Dowel just came in with 200 bucks. Thank you, Dowel. And it's his first super chat. Really appreciate that. That's kind of an honor for me to get support from Dowel. That's great. Thank you, Dowel. Dowel Wright, philosopher. That is great. That gets us just a little bit closer to where we need to be. Let's see. All right, to keep on track, we need about 1,500 bucks in the next 20 minutes. 1,500 bucks in the next 20 minutes. Friend Casey just did another $20. Thank you, friend Casey. She's come in a few times. Chris, thank you, Chris. Thank you, Colin. Colin, not Colin, Colin. Thank you, Raymond. Thank you, Shrug. So I think I've already done Shrug. So we're caught up. All right, let's go to, oh, God, R.D., God, R.D. 50 Canadian dollars, Canadian dollars, not as worth as much as it used to be. Hey, Iran, I've been watching your shows now for a little while, and this is my first super chat. Congratulations, and thank you. I'm a young man, and I really appreciate the value I see from your show. Thank you, and keep it up. I really appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you. You know, I look at the demographics of the show, which is interesting. Not a lot of very young people. It's the majority of people, a significant majority of people that listen to this show in the 25 to 45 age range. That is the sweet spot for the Iran book show. And that's why I think we can do so well in the super chat is because those are good owning years for everybody. That's where people are actually earning money and establishing themselves. So, you know, thank you. Yeah, Anonymous says he's 26. I'm curious how old are you guys who are on the chat right now? It would be interesting to see if you're willing to share your age, some people are not. How old are you? Frank is way more than 45. Yes, I know Frank, but I do have a solid listenership. Yeah, you see 41, 33, 25, 46, 32, 52, 32, 22, 22 is young for the Iran book show. 26, 67, 31, 23, 37, 29, 41, 30, 41, 61, 78, 70, alright, 36, 62. I didn't notice this. Last year's year of end show had a disproportionate number of people above 60. And that's because it's a fundraising show and you guys tend to have more money so you tend to come to fundraising shows. But it's just for 70, 74, 36, 62, 47, 19, 26, 68, 58, 21, 63, 26, 70, 46, 25. Robert says he's very old about my age. 41, 33, 40, 41, 174, Apollo is 174, 38, 36, 27. Yeah, I mean, this is consistent. This is consistent. I was born in 1961 and that makes me 62 years old, 62. I wonder what you would have guessed if you didn't know that. If Frank had a later year. Sam is 25. Yeah, I mean that's the sweet spot. Raphael is 34. And we got 67, 55, 45, 32, mid-40s, 40, 37, 56, 57. Yeah, I mean it's, as I said, 25 to 45 is 60%. And then you get 45 to 55, 55 to 65, 65 and above, you get slightly declining percentages as we get older. But the 18 to 25 is relatively, it's about the same as 45 to 55. But both of those are significantly smaller than the two middle-aged groups, right? Not middle-aged. Young, 25 to 45 is young. I'm middle-aged. All right. So, God, thank you. Really, really appreciate it. Hamad, looking back at this year, advancements in AI is mind-blowing. Most of my searches on the Internet with perfectlicity. Oh, I need to look for that. I don't have perfectlicity. You'll find it exciting. The app creator is an effective accelerator as well. Yeah, I'm going to do a show on effective acceleration soon. I'm copying the name, perfectlicity, because I'll never remember that, the app. I'll look for that. I'll look for that. Thank you, Hamad. I'm going to talk about AI in a few minutes whenever I get through some of these super chats and get back to the themes for the year. Obviously, AI is a huge theme, huge theme. All right. Let's see. Andrei. Andrei, the best movie I've seen this year is Roman Holiday. It's sad that Princess Anne sacrificed her happiness for her nation or her duty, whatever it means, but it's a great movie. It is a great movie, and she's beautiful and gorgeous. And that era of moviemaking is an amazing era of moviemaking, and there's so many great movies back there. But yes, the best movie Andrei watched in 2023 was a movie made in, I don't know, 1950 something? Roman Holiday? I'm not sure. Thank you, Andrei. I really appreciate it. I see me talking about the old movie, not some new movie called Roman Holiday. All right. Let's see. WCZN. Thanks for everything. Happy New Year, everyone. Keep building. That's 15 New Zealand dollars. Thank you. Friend Casey with 50 Canadian dollars, you're on. You save me hours in news reviews and keep me updated on what matters. I want a reference for entrepreneurs and freelancers. What American sources for tax law should I research and invest in? Would you author a tax book? No, I'm not writing a tax book. No, no, no. I don't know tax law. I really don't know. I mean, I don't know who would be the best authors for that. It's super complex. It's super difficult. Distorted, perverted, absurd, ridiculous, and frustrating as hell tax law is, I couldn't get... I don't have any incentive or motivation to devote time to figuring it out in order to write about it or in order to understand it. That's why I hire high-placed accountants to do that for me. I just don't want to know. It's just too distorted and perverted. Gail said, Happy New Year, Iran. Handsome shirt. Thank you. I agree. Struggling dictatorship economies, along with weak... West weakness is scary. I really got sick when I heard Trump called Millet to congratulate him. Be well. Yeah, I mean, Millet is the anti-Trump. Really, very much the anti-Trump. I'll be right back. I got another hot tea. Ah, that feels good. All right. This is keeping my voice going. So... All right. Let's see, Dan. Let's see how we're doing. All right. We're falling a little behind, guys. So we've got 15 minutes to do... 15 minutes to do... Oh, I can't do the math. 1,250 or maybe 1,200 with Ian just came in. So 1,200 bucks in 15 minutes. We've done it before on the show today, but we need to do it again. So 1,200 bucks in the next 15 minutes so we can keep on track to getting to the $12,000, which is $6,800 so far. All right. Dan says, Ukraine has declared Philip Morris a corporate enemy for not divesting from Russia. I really like PM stock, Philip Morris' stock. I hate to sell it. What do you think about donating a quarter of my profits to them instead? If I were Ukraine, I would prefer the few dollars. Yes, I mean, you don't help Ukraine by selling your stock in Philip Morris and if Philip Morris is making you money, then donating some money to Ukraine to offset the fact that you considered continuing to sanction Philip Morris, I think it's fine. Look, we live in a world in which to expect our corporations to be paragons of morality in a world in which nobody understands morality and politicians are so crummy and our philosophers are so crummy and our business schools are so crummy. You couldn't invest in any company. Any company. If you went by that. If you went by, you know, this kind of behavior in terms of where they do business and the kind of behavior that the corporate leaders engage in. So I think making a small contribution to Ukraine is good compensation. Andrew says, Happy New Year, Iran. When Rand was asked what her purpose was in living, she highlighted constantly expanding her knowledge. That's a main reason I listen to YBS. It expands my mind. Aside from politics, here's to great 2024. Thank you, Andrew. And I have to say that's a large extent why I do YBS because I view doing YBS as mind expanding, right? I mean, to me, preparing the shows, thinking about issues, reading books, you know, reading books with the idea of talking about them with you guys, having you guys challenge me and stimulate me with the questions that you ask. You know, all of those. All of those are ways in which, you know, all of those are ways in which I expand my knowledge constantly. So I view doing the show as my way to constantly stay on top of the knowledge game, if you will, stay on top of this idea of a huge priority to know more, to expand one knowledge, to grow intellectually, to grow intellectually. And as an intellectual, what can be more important than growing intellectually? So thank you, Andrew. And it's people like you who ask a lot of questions and often questions a little bit kind of from a different perspective than I think of things, right? You bring maybe a psychological element or other perspectives. That really helped me grow intellectually because, again, they forced me to think about things I wouldn't think of otherwise. I wouldn't think of otherwise. So thank you, Andrew. Thank you for the support. Thank you for all the questions and helping me grow intellectually. Sam C. says, Happy New Year, 500, SCK, Swedish Krona. Swedish Krona. There's Swedes. All right. Thank you, Sam. Jordan, how are you on how can one cultivate the mindset for ambitious life goals while also enjoying life? Sorry. Your whole problem is right there in the formulation of the question. I don't want my achievement to feel astere or come at the expense of personal happiness. Thank you. Happy New Year. Well, that's the point. It can't and it shouldn't. And if it is, then you're not, you don't have the right life goals. That is, you've got to have ambitious life goals that involve enjoying life. That is, the life goals should be in support of the life. And then it's easy to be ambitious around them because it's ambition around joy. It's ambition around growing as a human being and being happy and being more successful. You've got to enjoy the right. You've got to enjoy the process. You've got to enjoy achieving the goals, but also the getting there. And the problem is if you've got a mindset that says life goes over here, joy over here, we'll have to give up some joy to achieve my life goals. How can I be ambitious around that? But what you want to do is align them so that your ambitious goals to the extent that they're ambitious make your life more enjoyable. How do you do that? You find values. You find goals that are meaningful to you that you care about. You take on a long-term perspective. Joy is not just in the moment, it's over time. But if you've got the right goals, goals consistent with your values, then they should bring you joy and being ambitious around them should bring you the most joy. I can't think of how you achieve personal happiness without having ambitious life goals. It's the only way to achieve personal happiness is through ambitious life goals. So ambition and happiness, ambition and joy should be united. Hoi, RiRi. Oops, what did I do? RiRi from the Czech Republic. YBS is my daily dose. Keep up the great work you're on. I wish there was an index of all the YBS historical episodes such as my topic keyboard including minute locations. Is there one? There was a listener to the show who was working on one at some point. I think he gave up on the project, but he was working on one at some point. If you contact me independently, I'll try to put you together with him. Maybe you guys can figure out how to make that index a reality. And it should be easier now because you know what, this should be, we should be able to train, here's what we should do, really. We should be able to train an AI to listen, listen in quotes, to all of the Iran book shows ever done including my lectures, including everything I have online. And then index at all. AI, I think AI could do it. I think it would be a pretty good index. It wouldn't be perfect, there'd be mistakes, there'd be problems. So if anybody out there knows enough about AI that they think they can make that happen, then let me know. I'm using AI right now to create short videos. So Christian, who creates the short videos, is right now using an AI tool to create the one-minute videos. That's why we've got so many new one-minute videos going up every day. It's because it takes almost no time for Christian to make them because the AI is making all the editing choices. When to start, when to end, and giving it a title. So there has to be a way to use AI like that to index all the shows. Alright, Julie, thank you. Julie, thank you. Alex, my favorite 2023 shows, Clarkson's Farm, very funny, I've never heard of that, shows regulations, horrors, good omens and slow horses, great satire on fundamental stupidity. I like slow horses. The foundation, spectacular visuals and real heroes, staged funny examinations of friendship. The foundation I find frustrating because it's too borderline mystical. That is, there's too much arbitrariness to it. There's too much... The closest thing is mysticism in it, right? Alright, we have... Basically, we have six minutes to get $600. We need $100 in the next six minutes. Can we do it? Can we make it to $8,000 before 3 p.m. East Coast time? Is that possible? Is that possible? That will keep us, again, on track. On track means $2,000 every half hour. We're very close. So $600, $634, $24 in the next five minutes. No, five minutes. We'll see. So I copied over because I'll check some of these out. I really like slow horses. It's enjoyable. It's quirky. And yeah, it's got heroes. It's got heroes in it. Oh, Jeff. Jeff Ridpath. Wow. Jeff First Time Super Chat contributor. This is John Ridpath's son. I didn't know you listened to the show. I am honored. Thank you. I haven't seen Jeff, God, decades, years and years. Jeff says, Happy New Year, Iran. I've been a looker for far too long and wanted to let you know I am out there and deeply appreciate what you're doing, your passion, benevolence and sense of life and inspiration that often remind me of my father. I'm often reminded of your father, Jeff. I mean, we so miss him. We miss exactly those.  But that passion and benevolence, he brought to the movements and he brought our conferences and he brought everything he touched. And yes, that is something that's hard to replicate and there are not a lot of people out there who can do it. So thank you, Jeff. Really appreciate it. Thank you for the compliment. That really means a lot to me. Thank you. All right. We got some amazing, amazing first-time contributions here from people I didn't even know listened to the show. So this is amazing. Paul says, Happy New Year, YBS. Thanks, Paul. $50. James, $50. 36-year-old, I find your show with a Vosh debate. I used to think he was funny. Now I just see him as anti-Semitic cyber bully. I've kept away from leftist YouTubers since October 7th and I feel relieved and free like when I rejected Christianity. That's fantastic, James. Welcome. It's great to be picking people off of Vosh. I mean, that is amazing. I realize that one of the things I need to do in 2024, one of my kind of focuses in 2024 is going to be to try to do more debates like that because I brought a lot of people to the show and I think ultimately to objectivism by doing debates and putting them up online. I was looking through what brought the most subscribers and one of the things that definitely brought the most subscribers is debates. I've debated dozens and dozens of leftists over the years. Well, probably not dozens and dozens. I'm excited. I've done dozens and dozens of debates with leftists over the years. I need to do more of them. I mean, maybe do them online. Just do them online and not do them in person. But yeah, it's... Thank you. I wish I could debate Sam Harris. Sam won't debate me. Jacob says, thank you for the great content. Agree with 99.9% but frustrated with your lack of skepticism real child vaccination COVID. Government funded liability unit, no profit motive. The perverse incentive is in your face, especially with regard to pharma fraud. I don't think Vioxx was pharma fraud. Vioxx, pharma fraud. Vioxx was an amazing drug and its class of drugs is still used in other countries and it's a frigging disgrace that Vioxx was taken off the market by the FDA. I don't think Oxycontin is a fraud. I have a completely different perspective on the whole so-called Oxycontin issue. But no, I'm a huge fan of pharma and I'm a huge fan of the vaccine and I've looked at the data. I've analyzed the data. There's no problem with the data. I'm not a huge fan of child vaccination COVID but I'm a huge fan of child vaccination generally. It's unequivocal. The data is just no question of its benefit. As somebody who had every single frigging childhood disease, I'm so glad that my children did not have it, did not have those diseases. It made their life so much easier and my life so much easier. I hated being sick with those childhood diseases, mumps and chicken pox and all of those so I'm a huge fan of vaccines. But I'm glad we agree on 99.9% and I very much appreciate the support and I very much appreciate the fact that even though we disagree about pharma and VAX, you still listen to show and you still support the show and you're still on board. So many people take one issue and they disagree with you on it and they just disappear. They won't listen to you. They won't have anything to do with you.  So I appreciate the fact that you're willing to engage in spite of our disagreements. All right guys, we made the goal for the third half hour. So for the fourth half hour, so we're right on track. We're right on track to make it to 12,000. We're at 8,000 now, right on the button at four o'clock. So thank you. Wow. You guys are amazing, amazing, amazing, amazing. Let's see if these last $4,000 are going to be difficult, easy. Now it does turn out that if, if you, if we get 500 likes on the show, which shouldn't be that hard, like if everybody listening at every point in time likes the show, which costs you nothing and you can do on your phone, you can do on your computer, wherever you're just press, press that like button. And if you do, if we get to 500, then, then we've, you know, Adam, Adam Campbell has said he will give, he will contribute $1,000. So we immediately make it an extra $1,000, which will help us get to the target, make it much easier. We have 261 likes right now. But again, it's, it's, it's really simple for you guys. So please just click that like button and get us going. Let's, let's, let's make it. All right. Again, every, every like gets two bucks. Ian says there is a network of objectivist, objectivist, oriented therapist. Is there a network? I find many therapists are fundamentally altruistic requiring placing, piecing out the good advice. I don't know, Ian, but I think that's a good question for, for Gina Gorlin, who is a therapist. But Gina will also say there's some good therapists out there. And she might have some advice in terms of how to find one and how to look. I think she's big on, on cognitive behavioral therapy. So you might want to look there. But Gina would know, I just don't know. And as far as I know, there's no network. There are quite a few objectivist therapists out there. It's just a matter of finding them. But Gina would be your entry point just because she's on the show. And, and we all, we all know her. Mark, thank you, Mark. 140 Canadian dollars. Happy New Year, Iran. And thanks for the indispensable commentary. Your sanity is reassuring in an often insane world. I think I'm still sane. I think that's true. I sometimes wonder, given how insane the world is and, and everything that's going on around us, I think I've still maintained my sanity. Oh, I skipped a $50. I skipped some stuff here. How did I skip this stuff? All right, let me go backwards a little bit. Len, 279, 280 Canadian dollars. Profile or better interview. Guillaume Verdun, a French Canadian who abandoned the golden chandeliers of quantum computing for emergent properties of thermodynamics. That is capitalism as per Opa and in his computing startup. I have no idea what that means, Len. I'm going to copy because I'm going to, I'm going to check out this guy you mentioned, but I have no idea what you just said. I just don't understand it. You know, granted, I'm not, I'm not, I don't know a lot of physics. Emergent properties of thermodynamics. I don't know. All right. Let's see. K-fax, 50 bucks. Thank you. K-fax. Happy New Year despite the many bad things going on in the world. Yep. We're, we're fighting them. Holding up there. We got to keep fighting. We're not going to, we're not going to give in to all the bad things that are happening in the world. Oivind, 600 Norwegian Krone. Thank you. Oivind. Godzilla minus one. Every show, every show. He gives me a hard time about going to watch Godzilla minus one. Godzilla minus one is movie of the year. And I think I appreciate it more coming from an objective perspective. I'm sure you do. This has to do with the human side of the story and its development. Happy New Year. All thanks for doing you, Iran, to a great 2024. Thank you Oivind. And I will be watching that movie because of you and my son who basically, you know, are really, really pushing me to watch it. So I will, I will watch it. I promise. Michael says, are there no principles keeping us from collapsing? We're only functioning out of pragmatism. And if people like their wealth and technology enough not to vote in any way, not to vote it all the way, no principles as to why civilization should perpetuate scary. I think among the intellectuals, the intellectual question, no principles. I think there are a lot of people who like their freedom, who like their liberty, not just the wealth, but also their freedom and liberty per se. So I definitely think that it's, I don't underestimate the fact that common people are, common people are indeed, sorry, common people do hold some principles. Don't tread on me. Still is out there to some extent. The idea that I should be free, that I should be able to make my own decisions out there to some extent. But among the intellectuals, and what you don't have, certainly you don't have, is consistent principles. But to a large extent, what's holding up civilization is in OSHA and just, yeah, I mean, people's in a narrow sense, in a not very consistent philosophical sense, them valuing their own freedom, they're valuing their own liberty, they're valuing their own wealth. And you iPhone over here.  Dave says, 400 bucks, can you review the 2006 Corsese film The Departed? All right, copy-pasting it. I've got a lot of movie reviews now. I saw The Departed. It's about the gangster in Boston, right? It's about the cop that goes undercover in Boston. Yeah, I'll be reviewing that. EACC, we'll be talking about EACC. And one of the future Tuesdays coming up, Matthew, Happy New Year, more art shows in 2024. I will try. I will try. Thank you. Thank you, Matthew. Lewis, $100. What would America look like today if she was objective since 1776? Oh, wow. I mean, that's science fiction territory. It really is. It's hard really to project. You'd have to be a science fiction writer. We'd be far more advanced technologically. We'd be a gazillion times richer. People would be happier. The whole world would be happier, richer, freer. We'd be so much freer. The world, not just America. I mean, we'd be living in a world that we can't... I don't think we can even imagine today because we'd be so much further advanced. I think we'd be living way into our hundreds. I think we'd be doubling life expectancy at least at this point. So 160, 150, I don't know. But well, not just dragging it out, but well. In every dimension of material, but then think of the arts being created in America, it's just unimaginable. I can't even do it. 250 years of an objectivist country? Hard to believe. And how well America has done without being objectivist. Just imagine what could happen if it was. Oh, he says, Happy New Year, Iran. This show is a massive value to me and I hope it continues for a long time. I discovered objectivism through you. Wow. So I can honestly say this show is partially responsible for my life. I'm planning on applying to medical school in 2024. Wish me luck. That's terrific. Medicine is a tough profession, are we? Tough profession. I hope you know what you're doing. I'm curious where you're applying for medical school. Where do you plan to go? But good luck in the application and I hope you have a fantastic career. It's not impossible, but it is a difficult field because the government is so involved in it, which is sad. Josh says, We'll email about using AI to catalog the show. A good friend, Wishing you the best for 2024. Thank you, Josh. And yes, very interested in figuring out how to use AI for the show and cataloging it all. I think Alex Epstein is coming out with Alex Epstein AI that basically is taking all the content that Alex has produced, his book, his podcast, everything he's produced and doing something like cataloging like answering questions based on the knowledge and quotes that the AI gains from reviewing all of Alex's material. I think their own book show should have an AI like that as well. It would be interesting to see what the results would look like. I'm kind of curious now. Hamad Since you're looking for ways to expand the show, YouTube creators are using some AI platforms to provide subtitles and dubs in your own voice. You could add them after the live shows and to add shows and lectures to reach new audiences. It's a good idea. I'll try that. I like the idea of subtitles. Particularly to all the shorter videos, maybe even to the to the live shows, I think subtitles would help a lot. Good idea. I'm copy pasting something to check out. As I said, I'm using AI now to create these short videos, one minute videos. And those videos, the AI also creates subtitles. Big, easy readable subtitles. And the shorts it creates could be longer than one minute. One minute for YouTube is the format, but it could be longer than that. All right. James, what do you think will happen next year for the USA? Abortion rights, diversity in top schools, immigration craziness and the grid being constantly attacked by technology and actual people attacking places across the country. What areas will improve in US life? I think technology is improving and will continue to improve. AI is going to get so much more useful. Right now, it's just an amazing technology and somewhat of a toy and some uses, but the uses are just going to expand significantly. So I think we're going to see some really cool applications of AI in 2024. I also think you're going to see and I was going to talk about this, but you brought it up so I might as well talk about it now. Real movement of the genetic engineering front. The vaccine front. I think we're going to see cancer vaccines really start taking off. We've already got significant cancer vaccines in trials. I'm hoping we get some approved next year. You're going to see a lot more genetic treatments, which are revolutionary and changing the world. And finally on the technology front and stuff for 2024, I think you're going to see a lot more in-depth understanding and application of life extension technologies. I think we're going to see a lot more life extension applied. As you know, I did the show on Peter Tia. I follow Brian Johnson. I keep track of kind of the life extension stuff that's going on. I think there's a real chance in 2024 really we get enough knowledge to really start applying this in a significant way to our lives and starting to work on really extending human life. Not with some magic pill, but through a whole change of how you live, but based on science, not just based on voodoo stuff. Other positive things? I think the economy is going to do better than people expect next year. The economy is going to do okay next year. A lot of expectation of a session. Now, I've been pretty bad because I've been thinking there's going to be a session anytime now and it hasn't happened. I think inflation is indeed coming down and will continue to come down. I think that'll be the big economic thing. In terms of intellectually, I think Mille is a real phenomenon to watch in 2024 in terms of positives and watch it and see what happens. The craziness stuff, the attack on abortion rights will continue at the detriment of Republicans. I think Republicans could lose more seats in the House and Senate as a consequence of their anti-abortion perspective that it won't affect the presidency but could affect the House and Senate races. Diversity in top schools is a negative issue for the Democrats and I think they're going to try to suppress it and not make a big deal out of it in the coming year. Immigration will continue to be crazy but I think what will happen is that Biden will kind of deal with Republicans about border security so he can present himself as if he's good on border security because he needs to get that issue off the table because otherwise, again, Trump wins hands down. I think attacks on the grid, attack on industry, cyber attacks, things like that will continue. They're not going to go away. There's nothing to suggest that's going away. We're very, very vulnerable and we will continue to be very, very vulnerable to these kind of attacks. There's no investment being made right now. Significant investment being made right now to address these things. Sadly. Owen, $500. Thank you, Owen. That's amazing. Please review the movie Pig 2021 with Nicholas Cage. Thank you. I will. I've seen you Pig. I'm mixed about it but I will watch it again so that I can do a more pop-up review of it and think it through. So I had mixed thoughts about it. First time I watched it but it's always good to watch a movie again and I generally like Nicholas Cage. This one's a weird movie but yeah, we'll give it a shot. Okay, Harper Campbell $100. There's around 30,000 people whose lives would be a lot more mediocre anxiety, wouldn't, and miserable if you're on book, had never existed. Thank you for all you do. Did you ever imagine to have such a devoted audience? No, I mean I don't have a very large audience and this is, I think this is I think this is true. I don't have a very large audience. 35,000 subscribers. I don't know how many of them are regular watches. My shows don't get tens of thousands of views. I have a few of the short clips do. I don't have a massive audience but I have an incredibly committed audience and I mean, the number of people who are here every single live show and who are in chat, who contribute, who participate, who engage is amazing. The number of people who listen to all my, I do eight shows a week almost every single week is really, really amazing, really amazing. So there's a small group of you that are really, really dedicated to the show and that is amazing and inspiring to me and keeps me going and so, yeah, I mean, I know I never imagined that the audience would be this devoted and I really, really appreciate that and thank you all for being that way and being like that. Alright guys, we are $740 short of not short but we need to raise $740 in the next 13 minutes to keep on track. That will also get us to $10,000 which was man, I was short last year when we made it to $10,000 I couldn't believe it and it's amazing that we're even talking about that again this year. So we're $740 short of that I hope we can make it that'll keep us on track to by 3pm by 4pm at least goes time to make it to $12,000. I mean, I'll stay on later if that's what it's going to take but we're on track, we'll remind you again that if we get 500 likes just likes, thumbs up Adam Campbell will do $1,000 so that will make getting to $12,000 I think much, much easier obviously so we're very close but we got to increase those likes and the likes are the easiest thing to do today because the likes don't cost you anything and they don't require any kind of sophisticated anything it's just click a button we have 279 likes it's growing too slowly too slowly whoops what did I just do I don't want to do that so anyway consider it and please just click that like button now don't wait until before you go click it now so we can get there we can get there alright let's see James why does the news ignore wars in Africa do you see any logical fallacy of electric cars when so many people live horrible lives to get the materials for these vehicles will you cover the news story of two black brothers in Florida who had a gun fight at age 14 and 15 why does the news ignore wars in Africa I mean for a lot of reasons I think one is there seem to be always wars in Africa and it's I think so it's a constant flow there's constant civil wars and various kinds of wars there's a massive war right now going on in Sudan there's always seems to be a constant war in Ethiopia there are wars in the Congo there's civil war there are gangs it's just an area filled with violence because of the lack of any kind of sense of liberty and freedom in the continent and those ideas just never made it there or didn't get entrenched in any kind of significant way so that's one reason why I think wars the wars in Africa don't have a constituency in a sense of people who have been to Africa and therefore care somewhat about Africa right when you visit a place you start following the news you start following it not a lot of people visit Africa not a lot of tourism partially because of the wars partially because it's the infrastructure is not great partially because people are afraid and partially because people don't like people don't look like them but the reality is that you know we all been to Europe we visited Europe therefore Europe interests us more many Americans have been to Israel many Americans a lot of Jews follow Israel and care about Israel so there's a lot of caring about that there was no coverage of the war in Yemen because nobody's been to Yemen and nobody cares there was no war in Yemen before now they're stopping shipping to the west we care there's a constant civil war going on Myanmar in Asia nobody covers that so I think it's part of it and then also it's not geopolitically significant not in any dramatic way that is what happens in Africa matters but not in a big geopolitical sense there are no good guys there are no clear good guys so it's not clear from again geopolitical sense who you would root for so a you know I follow it a little bit I follow the news there a little bit because I'm interested in what's happening in the world and I'm interested in what's happening in Africa but not a huge amount and I don't know a lot of the history that's other challenges is you got to know the history you got to know the history of the tribes you know to fully understand the wars but you also have to know the history of colonialism am I going to cover the news I haven't heard that story so I'll look for it I'll look for it and if I find it and it looks interesting I'll talk about it but I haven't seen that I think it is sad that all of our electronics use components where children are being exploited and violence is raging to extract them from the ground in Africa and that's super sad what Africa needs are property rights they need the rule of law on property rights and until they get that nothing is going to change in Africa and in that sense there are no good guys and bad guys there's nobody fighting for property rights in Africa so those are the challenges we face but there's a real human tragedy and cost these lives waste it and part of it is the number that are migrating to Europe and causing the rise of the new rights in Europe as a consequence so peace in Africa would go a long way to making the rest of the world richer and more prosperous not to mention making the billions in Africa more prosperous Africa will be by population the largest continent in the world in a few decades it is growing much faster than any other continent in terms of population God out e I'm just curious as I mentioned earlier I've only been watching the show for a little while and during that time I've heard little of no coverage on Canadian politics is this something you don't find important or have I missed content about I don't find it very important I think that's the reality now I have a lot of followers in Canada so I probably should invest a little bit more in it Canada is a boring country I think you guys would agree I don't like Trudeau I don't think anybody likes Trudeau I don't know much about the opposition I don't know that much about the potential for politics but I should probably I had somebody else who asked more about politics in Canada I will make an effort in 2024 here's a commitment for 2024 to look a little bit more into Canadian politics because because I've got a lot of supporters from Canada that's the main reason and you guys probably would like me to comment more on Canada so I'll do that alright we are now what is that 250 basically 250 dollars basically short of keeping on track keeping on track with with the goal of 12,000 by 4pm east coast time and it's fine if we slip into it at the time but 245 245 we just got another 10 so 235 dollars is no way I'm going to cover any of the content I prepared from now on because there's so many questions so we're just going to do from now on I'm just answering super chat questions and there are a lot of them and a lot of good questions so we're going to do that but we've got $2,235 left right to make our challenge goal of $12,000 which is amazing and there's still a bunch of people who I know made large contributions last year who haven't contributed yet this year so maybe maybe there's hope we'll see alright Alexis thank you 100 pounds and the dollars weakening these days so the pound is worth more thanks for another fantastic year you are the economist nominated Greece as the country of the year based on the effects of the last 10 years to put the economy back on track what is yours I'd say Argentina for electing Millet I think it's the most interesting again we'll see if it's successful but the most interesting story I do agree with the economist that Greece is a great story I mean Greece was a basket case 10 years ago and they did some reforms they didn't even do anything close to what Millet suggests they just did much more moderate reforms and those moderate reforms that has been enough to make Greece the fastest growing economy I think in Europe and basically back now a lot of that has to do with tourism but not just tourism you know Greece has encouraged people to come and work there and pay very low taxes so what is it digital nomans encouraged to come to Greece people have really it's proved that once you liberate an economy even a little bit you can do great things and there's a lot more Greece can do imagine if Greece took the Millet route and really radically reformed the economy how amazing a place it could be I mean it's already one of the most amazing tourist places you can go to but it's got more than that it has more capacity than that thank you Alexis we got two minutes for 200 235 is that right 235 dollars 235 dollars in two minutes to keep on track this will be the first half hour we're not keeping on track if we don't make it let's see if we can make it 25 dollars now so somebody come in with 200 dollars and put us out of our misery right Liam says can you review the song need a favor by jelly roll I think it's a good insight on middle America and it's a well done song sure absolutely nobody's going to pay me a lot of money to do a review of Richmond north of Richmond I've already reviewed that song so oops it didn't copy over why didn't it copy over let's see maybe just didn't do it right alright huh some things off alright thank you Liam let me just try this one more time almost got it there we go alright let's see 174 dollars in one minute guys 174 in one minute when you mention in your lecture that in capitalism you could rely on private inspectors to ensure the product you intend to use is safe I remember how the tech security industry relies on third party audits and that drives the trust from customers absolutely and there are lots of examples in the private sector of private if you will regulations of private inspection of private certifications that do not rely on government in order to certify something and as you say build trust in an industry with consumers or whatever the methodology is absolutely and it exists we just have to expand it to cover everything cover all industries alright guys we are $124 short of $10,000 who's going to put us over James just did he just put us over alright so we're still on target guys we're still on target over the next half hour to raise just under $2,000 and make a goal a ridiculously high absurd goal that I didn't know way we could make of $12,000 and Glenn just came in with $200 thank you Glenn and has made it so now we only need $1,750 amazing amazing alright thank you Glenn thank you Larry Salisman I really appreciate that the support let's see who else do we have who did a sticker Chris Weed thank you I think I'm probably caught up on stickers most of you are leaving a comment or something underneath so I will get to you alright cool K-Fax New Year's Revolution I'm with you K-Fax I'm on the same New Year's resolution make more money I've got a yes definitely this year is going to be dedicated to figuring out can I make the Iran Book Show a basically can I live off the Iran Book Show can we get to the point where it is sustainable that's going to require significant increase in subscribers that's going to require increasing the pool of supporters to the Iran Book Show but can I make this something I can live off of and that's going to require about doubling the income from the show no it doesn't less than maybe rising it by 60 to 70% we'll see if I can make some real move in that direction alright James who put us over with 175 bucks what do you think about who's already given a lot of money today so has already moved us towards our target in big ways what do you think about the UK for 2024 will it continue to receive people from Hong Kong will they reform knife crime and will London still be the number 2 global financial center will it continue to decline as a whole economically wow it's really hard to tell we've got an election coming up in the UK so that is going to have a real impact on what happens on what happens you know if labour comes in even though this labour is a little more pragmatic, more centrist than the previous labour there's still going to be pretty disastrous and going to make it very difficult for the UK economy to thrive I do think they'll continue to receive people from Hong Kong but I do think they're going to put significant curbs on immigration generally people are obviously rebelling against the number of immigrants that have come into the UK legally but I think the UK is going to curb unfortunately regulations let's see what else will London still be the number 2 global financial center I don't know who else could replace London at this point Frankfurt, there was talk about Frankfurt but I don't think it will happen and there was always the potential of Hong Kong but Hong Kong it won't happen in Hong Kong sadly because Hong Kong has become China so I do think the economy is going to continue to struggle, it's not going to be easy but I believe in London I think London is one of the great cities of the world I think the people are amazing I think there's a lot of productive energy in London a lot of financial energy in London a lot of people want to be in London it's just a matter of getting the policy right and I just hope, you know let's get Kemi elected prime minister let's get Kemi elected prime minister of the UK because if we get Labour elected we're not going to do very well we're not going to do very well alright George $50, thank you George happy new year my wife and I are visiting New York for the first time in January wow, we'll be there for a week can you please give me a couple of restaurant recommendations well the obvious one is God I can't believe the name where's Geoffrey to hit me over the head with something okay I'll get you the name in a minute the name of the restaurant in New York that Geoffrey runs Rosella, thank you Miss Love Miss Love saved the day so Rosella, you got to go to Rosella and say how did Geoffrey and Rosella is a fantastic place I love that restaurant it's got great food what else do I like I like Indian accent although last time I did but I like Indian accent I'm not as familiar with New York restaurants depends how much you want to spend I love Perse but Perse is a massive it's going to be very expensive yeah Rosella has a side restaurant which is just a ball that seats a few people that is amazing shout out to Rosella in New York City that's the one you should visit there are a lot of really good restaurant guides to New York New York has great ethnic food try the Chinese food the Korean food a lot of good sushi places Rosella is a sushi place that you will really love alright we are $1,686 short and we have well we have as long as it takes to get there we have as long as it takes to get there so please help us ask a question if you can try to make it big dollars because I have a lot of questions which I will answer every single question so we are going to go as long as we need to I also want to remind everybody as I have several times to like like the show before you leave like it now because if we can get to 500 likes and it's going to be tough because we don't have a lot of time to make the 500 likes but if we can make the 500 likes then we get a thousand dollars from Adam Adam is committed to contributing a thousand dollars if we can get to a thousand likes right now we are 294 I don't know how we make it to 500 likes but I don't know why it's so hard for everybody who listens, even for 5 minutes just click that like click that like button we got 208 people watching live right now my guess is that 100 of the 208 have not liked the show yet so just make sure that you have and if you haven't please like it and that'll help a lot with getting to the 12,000 because we'll have a thousand in the bag from Adam just by getting 500 likes which is with 300 likes so we got a few likes out of my spiel but that's not enough because we need 200 more likes which is hard to get, I know it's hard to get we've gotten 500 likes in the show Adam I don't know if this ever happened but if not we're doing it now ok Robbie says Vonda and I will do a one-to-one match for every dollar from $10,000 to $12,000 so if your amazing supportive audience can do it then your goal will be $14,000 wow that is amazing, Robbie actually came in and did a $1,000 match last year that got us to the $12,000 that helped us get to the $12,000 I think that was above so we made it to $13,000 with that match so thank you Robbie, that is amazing alright you all heard him so we're already past $10,000 but if we make it to $12,000 it's actually $14,000 because Robbie and Vonda are going to a match, dollar for dollar everything above $10,000 up until 12 up until 12, there is a cap right, I saw it I saw it, Robbie is a little behind on where my speaking versus the chat, alright so let's do it, let's make it happen guys let's, we've got $1,630 what is it? $1,630 to go it should be very doable right I've seen the note from Robbie thanks Adam, appreciate it it's starting to come Adrej you're going to have to teach me how to pronounce your name at some point Adrej has just done 50 pounds that should help us a lot to make the number he says thank you for introducing Objectivism to me that is one of my goals in life is to introduce as many of you people to Objectivism and to get you to take it seriously and to live your life based on it that is big part of my goal alright guys, so a lot of stuff going on we got to get to 500 likes so we get the $1,000 that Adam Campbell has committed but we got to get 500 likes with 300 right now so we got to 200 likes in the next hour, hour and a half whatever long it takes right and then in addition to that we have to get to 12,000 because that will maximize Robbie and Vonda's match they are matching everything above $10,000 up to $2,000 so again that would be huge if we can take advantage of that match it's all up to you we're now $1,563 short $1,563 short $1,563 short in a normal show in a normal world I would say, well that's impossible but you guys have made it happen so far and haven't let me down so far so let's keep going and keep achieving the goal biologist 1981 anyway, something, biologist thank you for the $20 really appreciate that, that's a sticker I'm just looking at the stickers above and Casey, thank you Glenn, I mentioned Glenn before the $200 for a sticker and now we have Falguni Patel $200, thank you Falguni really, really appreciate it thank you, I mean do I have the most amazing listener in the community of anybody out there I think by far I don't think it's even close with 310 likes come on people there's gotta be another 200 likes out there go to Twitter and tell people on Twitter to come over and like the show before in over the next few minutes just jump over to like the show and that'll get the 500 likes use Twitter, use Facebook if you're watching on Facebook right now please come over to YouTube to like the show if you're watching on Twitter because I think this is streaming on Twitter come over to YouTube and like the show if you're listening live on the podcast app come over to YouTube and like the show and contribute something as well because we're still $1343 short of a goal I have like 300 questions in the Super Chat so let me get started on those, chip away at it alright, Siberian acts Siberian acts $200, thank you long time listener here, thank you happy new year, hope to see you in Amsterdam in March, definitely be in Amsterdam in March, I've got my airplane tickets I've got my hotel booked and I will be in Amsterdam in March I'm very much looking forward to it I'll see you guys there so thank you, Siberian acts we are definitely oops, I didn't want to do that we are definitely chipping away at this so we're now $1143 short and we are at just go remind people that the show is still on show is still going alright, let's see we have $300 and I thought it was 317 likes so we're chipping away at it slowly, 317 likes so we still got $183 to go my voice is still surviving I think I need one more T to get through all of this as you can hear from my voice I've had a sore throat the last two days and I thought I was going to lose my voice before the show my wife is making me these teas that are soothing to the throat so that's allowing me to survive here so alright let's see where we are okay Len HNY Happy New Year annoyed by scientific determinism this year effective egoism manifest in Don's book now I'm slow are you slow? I discovered EACC another counter to the BS of EA tech is openly adopting capitalism well some people in tech are openly adopting some aspects of capitalism I'm excited about EACC primarily because I think it's an opening for us to bring a philosophical foundation to it and I think Jason Crawford who I interviewed on the show a while back is trying to do exactly that so I'll be doing a show on EACC and I'm sure a lot of you have no idea what the hell EA CC is right it's a counter to effective altruism within the tech community and you know so it's a new movement about growth it's called effective accelerationism effective accelerationism and it's a counter to effective altruism and now we have effective egoism from Don we are rocking and rolling guys our influence is going to grow and this EACC effective accelerationism you know it's people like Mark Andreessen the whole pro build pro growth pro change the world attitude that some people in Silicon Valley have this is their new ideology it's missing a philosophy it's missing objectivism that's our job is to help it and as I said Jason Crawford is doing a lot of good work on introducing them to these ideas and then helping create a philosophy for them or introduce a philosophy to them alright I'm going to bug you about the number of likes we got to get 500 likes 500 likes we're 300 and I don't know 22 so we're shipping that slowly but don't leave it the last minute like the show now alright full of business for 50 bucks once in once in let me go what's going on here okay full of business the question is related to men going their own way can you define romance and romantic love also do you see the truth in the idea that men and women are sexually compatible but not as much emotionally thanks for all you do romantic love is the highest form of love it is a love that ultimately seeks and hopefully achieves an expression in sex and in sharing one's deepest values one's life with somebody romantic love is the expression of a deep you know a deep emotional connection with somebody who mirrors back to you the most significant deepest most meaningful values that you possess and it is a consequence you want to share the most magnificent experience human beings can which is sex and you want to share life with that person romance is you know the process of I think discovering discovering whether somebody it's romance is the God how do you define romance it's it really is an activity of getting to of sharing values of somebody of sharing experiences of something of starting to share elements of your life with somebody of being visible to somebody and having them be visible to you it is you know we do it when we're trying to get to know somebody but romance is something that you do throughout your life as you keep yourself emotionally spiritually open to your romantic partner a man and women compatible absolutely absolutely that does not mean they're the same one of the reasons they're compatible is because they're not the same men and women complement one another men and women emotionally and in other ways and in orientation towards reality complement one another build one on top of the other so it's it's not just sexual compatibility it's compatibility in everything and you know that's what real romantic love expresses and that's what real romantic love is about and that's what you get from romantic love is that you know intense compatibility in really most of the realms most of the realms of your life so I I think men going their own way is a massive you know it's men declaring defeat I think it's driven by people with low primarily with low self-esteem I think that women are for men I mean heterosexual men women are an immense value and the worth fighting for there's a lot of corrupt ideas in the culture right now that make it maybe difficult for men and women to get along corrupt forms of feminism but also corrupt forms of masculinity and you need a fight for your masculinity for the right approach to masculinity you need a fight for a relationship with the women you need a with a woman you need a fight to have a good life and I think romance is part of having a good life relationship is part of having a good life and it's worth fighting for it's worth expending the resources the energy the effort the thinking to do it and I think men going their own way is a defeatist mentality alright let's summarize where we are we're $1,046 short of our goal of $12,000 we're also $1,046 short of being able to capitalize on Vonda and Robbie's match of $2,000 for anything we raised from $10,000 to $12,000 so important for us over the next however long it takes we're this last half hour has been the slowest half hour we've had we'd have to raise $1,000 in six minutes to match the previous half hours it's doable but it's going to be tough but we'll keep going if it'll take longer it'll take longer but that's what we need to raise to reach our goal is $1,000 also there's another $1,000 on the table and that is $1,000 that Adam Campbell is committed if the show gets 500 likes we're at $322,000 it doesn't refresh on my screen unfortunately so I have to literally restart the thing so we're at $329,000 so it's growing but painfully slow I don't know if we can make it to the 500 likes but it's up to you if everybody there right now likes it maybe we can if everybody who joins likes it then I think we can we can do it Alex has just done $50 it's his first Super Chat ever thank you Alex that's amazing Alex Surio and so that that chips away at it again Jay Mavs thank you let's see who else did a sticker and thank you and let's see we've got another $50 question you might like a video called In Defense of George of George Westinghouse Junior, oh I love Westinghouse Junior Kathy loves physics and history he was an amazing inventor, entrepreneur and businessman and he started the first company at 20 he's been maligned by historians yes Westinghouse was actually the guy who electrified he's the guy who backed Tesla in the whole move for electrification so yes a real hero I'd love to learn more about Westinghouse and always interested particularly in people who are maligned by most historians and who don't deserve it thank you Jeff Jeff Fitpath another movie for your list the dish, oh yeah I love the dish the dish Australia 2000 an extremely benevolent pro-reason film that tells the story of of the parks observatories role in relaying the live TV signal of the first steps on the moon during the Apollo 11 mission yeah I saw that years ago probably when it came out in 2000 it was a fantastic movie because I should watch it again it would be fun guys watch the dish very very benevolent I remember that I don't remember the details but I remember as soon as he said the dish it hit me thank you Jeff really appreciate it let's see alright Robin $100 thank you Robin happy new year you're on thank you for your valuable analysis throughout the year it was a pleasure to meet you at Ocon looking for the senior at Ocon 2024 yes everybody join us at Ocon 2024 you can sign up now at ironrad.org start here and sign up for Ocon Adam says it's the same Adam who still has the challenge for you 500 likes and he contributes a thousand dollars here it's 100 as much as activism has taught me it doesn't get enough credit for preaching happiness unpacking prior