All right, here we go. No radical. Fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights. This is the Iran Book Show. All right, everybody, welcome to Iran Book Show on this Saturday, August 26. So everybody's having a great start of the weekend. I have very, very minor, if any, side effects on the vaccine. So I know the Kennedy family is disappointed, and I'm sure there are many others there that were hoping some doctor and what happened as a consequence of the vaccine. So far, so good. I'll keep you guys updated about what happened. So yes, we are ready to go. We are anticipating more people joining us. I don't know, I've got about 10 names that we're supposed to sign up. We will see if they join us as we go. Of course, the way this works is we have our panel. The panel gets priority for asking questions. And once we do a round with the panel, we then go to the super chat. If that is open, you can ask questions. This is ask me anything sessions. So you can take that literally, you can ask me about anything. I don't promise to answer about anything, but you can certainly ask about anything. And, and yeah, we'll take it from there. So politics, art, economics, state of the world, foreign policy, Vivek, whatever you want to ask about. Yeah, have an opinion. Most things have an opinion about not, not literally everything, but most things I do have an opinion about. Some opinions are even educated. All right. Let's, let's start. I think Ryan was the early bird. I think he was here first. So Ryan, first question. Yeah. I just finished rereading we the living via about a month ago or so. And so I appreciate the, the show you had the other night. I was wondering, do you think there are any real live examples or real world examples of Andre in the world today? On the world today? Yeah. And, and I guess along the same lines, do you ever wish you had better enemies? That's a good question. Do I think there are Andres in the world today? Not many, to a large extent, because we seem to be living through an era where ideology is dead. And with the kind of conventional ideologies, communism, fascism, even, even, you know, are being played out. So it's hard to be innocent in terms of the consequences. I think of a, of a new ideology that is not, that is not communism or fascism or some something bad like that. There's nothing really vying for political power. I mean, I'm sure there are kinds of at the fringes, all kinds of ideologies, but in terms of vying for power, there really isn't. It's not because I think we've worked through all the different variations of communism. I'm sure we haven't. I'm sure they're more to come. But it seems like at least the imagination, maybe we've looked through all the different variations of collectivism inspired by Christianity. I don't know. So I, I, there's wokeism. It's just too disintegrated. I think wokeism. It's too nothing. There's no there there with wokeism. There's no, there's no, nothing robust about it. It's fragments of a lot of different other stuff. A lot of it is just kind of a victim hood and a victim mentality and and emotionalism. There's no grand ideology. I mean, communism, love it or hate it. Hate it mostly, hopefully. It's a grand ideology. It has, it has calm arcs behind it. It has a huge theory. It has commentary on the culture and on the world. You know, fascism came to power in the center of Europe. And it had a view of the world. Again, evil and wrong, but it had a view of the world.  Yes, it derives from philosophy. It has philosophical underpinning in the postmodernism and critical theory, but critical theory is thin and postmodernism is just the negation of theory. Postmodernism says anything goes, emotions. So there's just, you know, I don't think there are any woke who Andre. It's too silly of an ideology for that. Like Andre wouldn't buy into woke as it's too shallow and to like communism has a grand vision for the entire world. It wants to remember it's not even about Russia. At that point, right? It's about a global revolution to make the world a better place to achieve a Marxist utopia. And if you're coming out of a period where you've been oppressed by the aristocracy and oppressed in a feudal society, at least you can see some semblance of an idea that, and this is all you've been exposed to. And somebody comes and says, the workers of the world, we're going to unite. And we will have this amazing, amazing utopia at the end of it. And this is for the people. And yes, we, you know, the enemies of this great revolution that we have to get rid of in the process. But at the end of the day, we all unite under this banner of peace and living to, you know, I'm probably turning some of you into communists right now. A banner of peace and brotherly love. And you can see how an innocent young man who has been brought into this massive feudal society could buy into that.   It's just. You're wrong. Yeah. You know, an exception that we all know as objectivist to that is Nikos. Yeah, but Nikos, Nikos wasn't an Andre. And I don't think he bought into woe, bought into Marxism. He bought into the real serious like altruism, collectivism from what I understand as he's explained of his life story and his intellectual evolution. Yeah. And I think there are a lot of innocent people who buy into that, but only for a while. You cannot, you cannot survive for very long because the history stood clear cut. And if you do survive for longer than a few years, then there's something very wrong with you. And do I wish I had better enemies? Absolutely.  I mean, it's, it's a combination of, yeah, it's, it's, it's old. There's nothing new. There's nothing interesting.  And that's the worst kind of enemy. The best kind of enemy is somebody who actually stands for something and in a post to you and can make a semi rational argument about it. And there's just very few people like that partially because we live in such a non-ideological world. Thanks, Ryan. Thank you. All right, let's see, Nick.  Too hot in the room. All right. Go for it. Okay. I want, I know you've made several comments on how disappointed you are with Vivek Ramizwami, especially on policy and justifiably so.  He's the first politician who I've heard attempt to make a moral argument, you know, a vision of the future. And he specifically says we can't run on grievance, just to be against Biden. So, you know, there's elements of individual of individualism. I mean, I mean, I've never heard another politician attempt to make a, it says we got to win the moral argument. I mean, he says that up front. So I want you to comment on that. And then I want you to separate also Vivek, the politician versus Vivek on policy.  We know that, right? With his isolationist arguments. And he tries to spouse that Nixon, the Nixon doctrine, where if we support Russia to act as a counterbalance to China. No, but, but, he doesn't know what he's talking about, but yeah. Okay. All right. But, but a lot of his, a lot of his policy argument, he's trying to appeal to the macro crowd. He's trying to peel off support in terms of calling Trump the greatest president of our time and pardon him, pardoning on day one. So if you can address a, that he's the first one to make the moral argument, you know, whatever it is in terms of, you know, there's some elements of individualism there and separate Vivek, the politician from Vivek on policy. Yeah. I mean, I don't know that he's trying to make them all argument. I mean, he says you need them all argument, but does he make them all argument, right? That is, I've never heard him actually talk morality. He, look, there's a lot about Vivek to like. He's obviously super smart. He's articulate. He's fast. He's fast in terms of his, his responses. He's charismatic. He's passionate. So he exudes a certain moral confidence in his positions. And you know, there's an element of individualism there primarily when he's attacking the kind of leftist arguments, but he's, but he's all over the place. And, you know, and he has, there's no unifying principle to his position other than kind of be radical enough to get noticed and appeal to, to Trump supporters with the, I guess the goal that if Trump falters, you become the replacement for Trump, for the make, for the make America great again.  I mean, it wasn't principles and it was like the first one, there is a God. The second one was the two genders, the easier principles. I mean, this is, this is, so it's just all over the place and it's, it's meant to create cognitive dissonance. It's meant to get him attention, which it has his whole, his whole way of doing the debate. I mean, I think the other candidates played into it because they all decided to attack him. I think the Santas was disappointed because nobody attacked him. But, you know, he, so it was, so he got a lot of attention from the other candidates and he attracted a lot of attention to himself.  So, so I don't know what the moral argument is. It's certainly not a thread in his discussions. I don't think there's anything that comes across as a thread. And then he talks with great confidence about things he, he has no clue about. And whether that's, I don't know, going to war with Mexico over drug cartels and drug policy. And as if he knows what that is. And, you know, maybe he should, maybe he should not, is he adopting the Nixon strategy around drugs as well? He says the Nixon doctrine, whatever that Nixon was the one who got started with the, with the war on drugs, right? So, so, you know, but, but the Nixon doctrine, the Nixon doctrine, as, as it played out, you know, we lucked out, but as it played out, it was a massive mistake, I think, particularly Nixon going to China was a huge mistake. Certainly I man thought at the time the Nixon going to China was a massive mistake, even though the Nixon doctrine might have made sense. But, you know, there's so many problems with that. We'd have to get into the whole China thing. There's so many problems, but it's amateurish. You know, so it's amateurish. China wasn't in the middle of invading a Western country when you're going to initiate this. I mean, that would have been insane to initiate something like this. China as China in 1972, if China was invading a Western country at the time. So, you know, maybe five years ago, this would have been a strategy, but now it's, it's, it's ridiculous. So in terms of politics, look, he's playing his cards well for now. I don't know how long this will last. Remember that a lot of candidates get these bumps and they seem like they're invincible and then they fade. And I don't know if that's going to happen to him or not. He certainly has more energy and more charisma than I've seen from anybody in politics in a long time. And I think that goes a long way. He says all the things that appeal to the MAGA people, but the MAGA people are committed to Trump. So he's not going to peel any of them off. It's not like he's going to, they're going to say, oh, no, we're going to go with Ramaswamy instead of Trump. It is a tiny fraction of them that might do that, but most of them are not going to do that. So I'm not sure what his game is. Maybe it's a try to be VP. There's talk now that Trump complimented him on his debate performance. There's talk about Trump choosing his VP. But I put the odds of Trump taking Vivek as VP at like, I don't know, less than 5%, probably less than 1% politically because he's too charismatic. Trump doesn't want somebody young, charismatic, energetic. He wants a wall fly. He wants Mike Pence, somebody, and he needs kind of a Mike Pence to rally. He needs somebody to rally the rest of the Republicans. He doesn't need a MAGA. I mean, right now, if I had a bet who Trump would choose as a VP candidate, it's Nikki Haley because Nikki Haley gets him the kind of the foreign policy conservatives. It gets him kind of the standard Republicans. I think it gets him. And I think that or maybe picks, if he wants to really push it, maybe picks Tim Scott, right? He picks Tim Scott or Nikki Haley. And it's one of the reasons Tim Scott and Nikki Haley are so careful not to criticize him too much because they know that they're probably in the race to be VPs, right? He's not going to pick dissenters because he's criticized dissenters too much to pick him. He's not going to pick, I don't think, Ramaswamy because Ramaswamy is too charismatic. So those are the two left for him. He's not going to pick somebody. Maybe he picks somebody out of the race. There's always that potential. And then policy-wise, it's just a mishmash, right? It's just a mishmash. He hasn't talked about what he's going to do with Social Security and Medicare because he knows MAGA people don't want to hear anything about, you know, Social Security and Medicare. A lot of MAGA voters are old, 65 and older.  He's playing to the Christians. He's supporting the Christians. He's enforcing the Christians. And, yeah, I mean, it's, this is the Republican field. It's sad that the package of somebody with this kind of charisma and experience as a biotech, you know, entrepreneur comes, you know, that package comes with this kind of attitude and these kind of ideas that is tragic and sad. Because it would be nice to be able to actually get excited about a candidate. It'd be nice if you had, if you would have a talk with Alex, Alex knows him. And so does Amish, you know what I mean? He's adamant on his shows. What would a talk make any difference? I mean, I'll talk to him. He's smart. He's smart. He's smart. Maybe he's just... No, he's smart.  I'm going to tell him all this stuff is wrong and he's going to say, yeah, but I need to get elected. Plus, you know, is he as religious as he claims he is? Probably not.  Is he, you know, does he believe all the foreign policy nonsense he says? I don't know. You know, again, I think a lot of it's cultivated towards getting the MAGA crowd. Does he really intend to send, like DeSantis, to send special forces into Mexico? Yeah, right. I mean, I mean, so I don't think there's anything he would gain from meeting with me, but sure. But even if he rubs off, if you rub off... Somebody, in the 2016 election, I got a call from a major Republican donor in the, towards the end of the race when it was still, it was basically Trump and Cruz in the race. And basically the donor called me and said, will you talk to Ted Cruz? You know, would you give him some kind of advice or maybe he can at least win the primary in California or something, because by then there wasn't much left, but California is a big deal. And I said, sure, I'll talk to Ted Cruz. I mean, I'd rather Ted Cruz get the nomination than Donald Trump. Even though I hated Cruz, and I'd been unbelievably critical of Cruz. And, you know, it never came together because basically he dropped out of the race like three days after that phone call was made. I'll talk to anybody. I'll talk to these guys. But if you think it'd help, no. I mean, I can only imagine how disappointed Alex is about Vivek and even what he did about climate change. I know somebody who's giving Vivek a lot of money to talk about education. And his agenda item in education got one line that probably lasted 10 seconds in the debate that Vivek had promised he'd say it. But he gave it 10 seconds. So he must be disappointed. So there were a lot of, you know, Scott says Alex likes Vivek. I'm glad you have inside information into Alex's thinking about Vivek. I'm curious when was the last time you had a conversation with Alex. But I actually had Alex's opinion about the debate, at least a little bit about his opinion about the debate. Anyway, it doesn't matter. Alex can have his opinions. It's quite reasonable that I will disagree with Alex often. I know Alex and Vivek talk regularly, often. I said that on the show. But that doesn't mean Alex likes him. Alex talks to a lot of Republicans. And he might like him. I'm not saying he doesn't, but I'm sure he's disappointed in his positions as expressed in the debate. Adam has his hand up. Adam. Yes. I think it's not accurate that Ramaswami does not have a stated philosophical position because he has written three books saying exactly what his philosophical position is. And it's Marxism. His latest book is entitled, Capitalist Punishment. How Wall Street is using your money to create a country you didn't vote for. Which is a statement of the Marxist model of class struggle.  I would say probably a follower of Robert Elbrunner from what he writes in his books. I don't think there was such a thing as a market Marxist. I don't think there's such a thing. I think he is what a lot of these people are. What I think is people call populist, which I think is kind of a mishmash of ideologies that basically takes class struggle from Marx, doesn't take the rest of Marx from Marx. There's no dialectic. I don't like using, I guess I have too much respect for Marx to assign Marx to all these people because Marx had a theory of history, a theory of economics. These people don't have it. Swami doesn't have it. I don't think the left has it. I think they have a mishmash of ideologies. They pick and choose. To blame everything on Wall Street is common both on the left and right today. Occupy Wall Street was both left and right. I don't consider particularly Marxist. Some of them are Marxist. Some of them are just, what do they know? They have a very negative view of money, capital and Wall Street. No, but Robert Hale Bronner, who was an economist and a philosopher and I would say quite coherent internally even though he was a Hegelian he did admit contradictions, but he was definitely a market Marxist and Vivek is just following up on that. And I would be very concerned in that many, one thing that's not appreciated about Marx is that Marx really very strongly believed that the West is where his ideas will be realized. He was very contemptuous of the Russian half of Eurasia and certainly of all the non-Europeans. And while Vivek's parents come from India he's taking the same position on immigration that somebody with that philosophy would take. So I think he's gotten a lot more from Marx than you're giving him credit for and I think his books reflect that. It could be, but my view is that Marx is now so embedded in the culture that almost everybody out there has picked up elements of Marx because one thing that's happened since the Russian Revolution certainly but to some extent even before that is that Marxist ideas, not the Marxist theory system as a whole but Marxist ideas have just been embedded in the structure of our society when we teach the history books on American history the one that was being taught used the most was I forget the name of the historian who was an economic Marxist and everything is presented from class struggle. So a lot of the ideas about Wall Street, the ideas about finance have definitely been picked up in Marx. Look, he's a mishmash of bad ideas. I agree and to the extent that he is anti-Wall Street and it's by the title of the book certainly is. Yeah, I mean, then that's really, really bad. I think that I don't think at the end of the day he has a coherent, if you look across his different positions that he has a coherent ideology other than try to capture Trump voters and try to articulate something that doesn't offend them in any kind of significant way. But in the other thing that you said that Trump is not likely to pick him I think Vivek is Trump's ideal instrument to demonstrate to the other side of the Republican Party that he is willing to accept people who don't look like the typical Trump supporter. This is why he is like the people who are calling this. I mean, remember the Nikki Haley's half Indian and Scott and Scott is black. So I think you're right in a sense that he's going to want to pick somebody like that. But there's no way I'm really willing to put money on this one. It would be shocked. I mean, I think it's a hundred to one that he picks Vivek because Trump doesn't care about messaging. What he cares about is Trump in a superficial, non-selfish way. In a selfishness without a self way. And Vivek without China in terms of everything, in terms of rhetoric, in terms of energy, in terms of everything like that. He's not going to take somebody who is going to, he needs somebody. I actually think what's his name from South Carolina is probably his best bet because he didn't do well in the debate. He was kind of mellow. He'd fit perfectly as wallpaper in Trump's campaign. Right? A black man right in behind Trump. I think Trump would love that. That would be perfect. Anyway, we'll see. We're going to discover that soon enough. Unfortunately, when Trump wins the nomination and his chooses VP. All right, let's go Roy. Okay. Before I get to my question, just a comment. I found Vivek insufferable. Bill Manard. And I didn't think that was energetic and assertive. I thought it was just rude. He reminded me of, any of you are old enough to remember the character Stuart on mad TV, a pre-adolescent pre-cocious, but uncontrollable, nine years as a pre-adolescent, nine years old or something, who just kept trying to get his parents attention. So I found nervous desperation in all of Vivek's energy and all. It was, it was unfocused. I couldn't stand much more from him. Plus, say, plus, of course, there's this stuff that Nick brought out and you brought out.  And saying to the other candidates, I'm the only one on this stage who hasn't been bought and paid for.  So, so much for me and Vivek. And I'm hoping we never have to think about who Trump is going to choose as his vice president because of the 14th Amendment. Now, goodbye. Good luck. But with that, I hope you're right. And it is interesting that it's too conservative, conservative law professors brought up the 14th Amendment and we'll see how it comes into play, whether this is taken to the courts or not. But that would be, that would be pretty amazing.  Fox News loves him.  So. Well, the only candidate. This is the same world that elected Trump.  Yeah, I know, I know. I mean, I really do know, but of the candidates on the stage, there's only one who I liked almost from beginning to end. And that's Chris Christie. I know that he's not as radical and going to make dramatic changes, but a little sanity that's leaning in the right direction would be very welcome at this point. But anyhow, and I thought he was strong without being rude. So anyhow, enough. That wasn't my question. All right. Go for the question. Me holding forth. Okay. There were two things, two questions that the audience, the viewers asked you. And I'd like to pick up on each of them. It'll be fairly brief. One was, I think we may have been Jennifer who asked, is there such a thing as overthinking someone, something overthinking something. And in fact, you even answered it twice because someone else may have brought it up. And you. What you said, I agree with in that. You would. The context was a skill. You need, if you, if you need a skill. And it's something you can't afford. If you're playing tennis backhand, you don't want to think of all the little steps, the dozens of little movements that you have to go through to do it. It has to become automatic. And that's who are playing the violin or any skill. But I never thought of overthinking is having anything to do with the skill. Okay. My thinking of my. View of what overthinking means or what, what's always meant to me is when you give too much weight to spend much, too much time deliberating something. When the difference between the alternatives is not that significant. You know, if you make the wrong choice, you'll still be alive. You still have all your money. And you can go to a different restaurant next time if this one didn't work out. So for Christ's sake, make a choice. And so that's how I think that's what I think. To me, that's the meaning of overthinking something. So. Okay. Well, let's take that and round two, you can do the second question. So, okay. Yeah. I mean, I agree. Maybe, maybe that is the context. Maybe I, I, I, I switch context too much. Yes. There's situations where you, you spend a lot of time thinking about something that has very minor consequences. I'm also looking online. I just typed in overthinking. And the first thing comes out is. When you repetitively dwell on the same thought of situation over and over to the point that it disrupts your life. And, and I think, you know, is that so dwelling on things, spending too much time, you know, being challenged by something of minor importance. Yeah.  And I think they can be, they can be real problems. And I think people really suffer from these things. And really it disrupts their lives. It becomes, it becomes a real challenge. So yeah, overthinking does exist. This is, this is one of them. Maybe what I was talking about is, is, I don't know, is, is thinking where it's inappropriate to think or, or, or, or, you know, engaging in thought when, when you don't need to be engaging in thought. But yes, I mean, there's so many things that. And that's enough, right? You've worked it out. You know what the answer is. Stop dwelling on it.  Just to follow up comment. It reminds me of the debate about corporate meetings. And I think it's a lawn musk who's really strict about having a purpose to the meeting. It might be another billionaire, but like he will not. You have to lay out what the objective of the meeting is in order to have a meeting. And I do find being in a, in a big business that there's a lot of overthinking. Yep. In meetings that aren't clearly gravitating around an objective. Yep. I agree. Speaking of Marxism and the Marxist spirit. I don't know if you heard about the Richmond North of Richmond singer saying that the Republican politicians are who he wrote the song about. Well, I don't think he meant it that way. I know, but they all you politicians are the same. And you're part of the people that I wrote the song about. Yes. Yeah. But it's just so funny and uncool of the Republicans as usual that they play it at their debate. They're, they're trying to adopt this as their theme song. And it's like, you're not popular young among the young. And that was what I wanted to ask you about. Why do you think they're not popular among the young? Because the conservatives. I mean, to be a conservative, how can you be young and be a conservative? I find that to be the like the most bizarre combination in the world is when you're young, you're supposed to be, you know, radical and pushing and interested in sex and interested in innovation and progress. And to be a con, you know, to wear a little bow tie and to, and to, to be, you know, to have these conservative ideas about life and about the world and about the past.  So, you know, when you're young, you should be progress oriented and progress oriented when it comes to politics and economics versus progress oriented when it comes to social issues. So it doesn't surprise me that, you know, young people are progressive and young people are leftist. I think the challenge is what we need to convince young people is that ultimately, you know, being a leftist is conservative, right? I mean, these ideas have been tried. Your parents were leftist when they were in college. Your grandparents were leftist in college. Your great grandparents were Marxist when they were in college. This is super boring. This is like, you know, you're completely conventional. Come join us and be a real radical, the real radicals, the real progressives, the real liberals, the real, I mean, every, every one of these terms, but we're not conservatives. That's for sure. It's objectivism. This is a dynamic, exciting, future oriented idealistic that is fit for young people. It's perfect for young people. Yeah.  Hey, if you want to attract young people, try having ideals. Yeah. But to the extent that they have ideals would be terrible, but they think that principles, when they say, when they say, this should be, you know, life begins with conception. That's a principle for them. Right. They think that the principles are, well, God said X, that's a principle. You know, the principles are grounded in mysticism and in the past and in a staid philosophy and an old philosophy. So, yeah, I mean, I, so they, when they asked me to speak to Ted Cruz, I said, look, you know, there's no way Ted Cruz can really win in California because the winning California, he has to win kind of Republicans who are not religious. So like Ted Cruz, if Ted Cruz cannot say that he believes in evolution, Silicon Valley will now vote for him. And I told this to the donor and he said, you got to tell that to Ted Cruz. You know, what helped with that? We did Ted Cruz, right? He's going for the evangelical vote. I'm telling him, you can't say you don't believe in evolution because then you won't. I mean, a young person, one of the things that's true of young people right now is young people right now are not hyper religious. That is, this is one of the most secular cohorts of young people, probably the most secular cohort of young people in American history. So that's another thing that you're not going to stand up there on stage like Mike Pence does and refer to God and finding Jesus and whatever and be taken seriously by that many young people. They're just not that interested, even the ones who claim to be religious are not affiliated. That is they're religious without affiliations. They don't really buy into the particular, you know, kind of evangelical story that Mike Pence wants to tell. So yeah, I mean, it's not surprising. Again, this is where we have a real opening and I think ultimately where we win, we'll win to the extent that we can get the message out there is by having a truly progressive ideology that explains the world that is philosophical without being religious. And I think that is very appealing to young people. But, you know... It has to excite people too. It has to excite people, but at the end of the day, the ideal is I'm saying for young people. But at the end of the day, nothing changes until you dominate the intellectual high grounds. There's almost no revolution that's ever happened and I struggle to think of one that has happened from the bottom up. At the end of the day, the masses don't matter that much. They're going to go with the conventional. They're going to go with what's there. What you really need to capture if you want to change the world long term is the best. What you really need to capture are the people who are in the future going to be the writers, the filmmakers, the intellectuals of a future generation. And that's all that really matters. So I'm reading a book. I'm reading this book on Christendom, which is fascinating, really fascinating. And anyway, I'm going to do a whole show on it. Because I'll do a book review out of it. But because the historical lessons about cultural change, they're fantastic. They're amazing. And it is interesting because you think of Christianity rising and they take over Rome and then it's just sweeping through the world and it just dominates, right? And the book makes the case that there are all these, first of all, all these internal struggles within Christianity who wins and who loses. And then of course, we all forget about Islam. Islam comes into the Christian world and converts all these Christians into Muslims. And again, we assume that they did it by the sword. Not true. Not true. They did it by converting the intellectuals and converting the rich for a variety of different, both economic and intellectual reasons. So it's super interesting how cultures actually... Can I ask one quick follow-up? Was Islam infused by Aristotelianism by then? No, no. Islam was... Islam was infused by Aristotelianism much later, right? It was already conquering the entire part of that world without any Aristotelianism. And we don't know much about it because between the birth of Muhammad or the rise of Muhammad and really the Abbasid Empire, which is, I don't know, 150 years later, there's very little written texts telling the story of what happens. Most of the stories about the Muslims were written about 100 years after the story they're telling. So we don't know much about Muhammad from a historical perspective. We only know it from the Quran and a few other sources. And the whole spread of Islam through the Middle East is, you know, we don't know that much about it. We know a lot more about the spread of Christianity as Christianity spread within an empire where people were writing and it was an intellectual place where people were writing and talking and there was an intellectual debate going on. All right, but that's a whole other topic. We'll have to get to it. And I said, okay, Adam. Recently, there was supposed to be a catastrophic tropical storm here in California. And there wasn't. My condo is five miles from the path of the supposed storm. And all we got was two hours of light drizzle. And so I'm beginning to wonder, being a first person observer, how many of the alleged natural disasters that are supposed to be happening every day now because of climate change are really things that are not happening that the press is pumping up for whatever reasons they may have. I think there's no question the press is pumping it up. But I think things are happening. They're not happening on a scale that the press is doing it. The press will choose the places that are hit hard. I mean, for what I understand, Death Valley got more rain from this storm than it's ever has before. At least that's the story. Now nobody lives in Death Valley, so nobody can actually testify to that, although I'm sure they have measurement instruments there. And you don't live in Death Valley. But look, I came to Puerto Rico after Maria, after Hurricane Maria. And the island was devastated. I mean, it was crushed. Power lines were down, trees were down, roofs were, many of the houses didn't have roofs. I mean, nice, very expensive condominium buildings had their windows knocked out, right? They had wood instead of wood placed there. So I've seen that. And last year we had a category one hurricane passed through the island. I was out of town conveniently, but my wife was here during the hurricane. And it was, it was brutal. It was not a pleasant experience. So I hesitate to say that it, you know, it's not happening. It is, everything is exaggerated because there's money in exaggeration. We know that media sells bad news. Good news doesn't sell in the media. So, and, and, you know, it was hot in Phoenix when it was hot, you know, we have thermometers. We can, we can measure that, almost everybody, I'd say 99.9% of people who live in Phoenix have air conditioning because, you know, maybe it reached 121 one day, but normally it reaches 119. So it's hotter than normal, but even 119 you won't survive without air conditioning, right? So, yeah, everybody blows these things without giving you a context. Like Phoenix getting a little hotter doesn't make any difference to anybody because Phoenix is already used to very hot. It did rain quite a bit in parts of California in August. That's pretty rare. It wasn't catastrophic, but it was certainly rare. It was unusual. We don't, if I remember right, you could pretty much bet that July, August, you'd see no rain in Southern California. All right. We've got a bunch of super chat questions. So let me go to those starting with the $20 one and let's just say for now on in the super chat, only $20 questions primarily because the panel has priority and there's already a lot of like five and $10 questions. I'm going to do the $20 questions now and then we'll do the five and 10 later. So Brownie asked, can someone be at the same time an objectivist and also reject IP as a legitimate form of property? I don't think so, not in the long run. I mean, certainly you can make a mistake about it. You can hold all the basic ideas of objectivism and still not quite get IP, but I think that will indicate a flaw in your thinking about the world of the mind, about epistemology and about kind of what property means in objectivism, which is different, I think, than its definition in law. So I think the more you understand about objectivism, the less likely it is that you hold that, but you could hold that in error, but again, the more you integrate objectivism, the less likely I think that is and the more likely it is that you agree with objectivism on some things, but not on others. I think at the end of the day, intellectual property is a pretty, goes pretty deeply into, is pretty deeply integrated into the rest of the objectives philosophy. You've got a contradiction somewhere if you hold objectivism and you hold that intellectual property doesn't exist. It's a question of finding out where that contradiction is and working through it, which is, I think, important to do in life, figure out where you're wrong and working through it. And unless you can find, unless you're arguing that I made a mistake, which is possible, of course, but then there's a, you know, the burden of proof is to prove that but I doubt it if you fully integrate the ideas. All right, Michael says, what if Vivek just playing to Trump's base and has no plan to follow his policies, he does need Trump's base to get elected, whether we like it or not. So throwing Trump under the bus might not be a correct play here. Yeah, but then let's say that's true. All the books he's written, everything he said is just, he's just playing a game to get elected. Then how are you, how could you ever vote for somebody like that because you don't know who you're voting for? Maybe Vivek is really a closet woke warrior and he's really dedicated to a leftist agenda and he's just trying to take over the Republican Party when he becomes president.  And if everything he's saying right now is a lie in order to get elected, then to get elected, then of course, then he's just a power luster. He doesn't, you know, and why would I vote for him? So I don't see any circumstances where I could vote for somebody like that if I made that assumption.  So, you know, now it's not going to be a big problem because again, I don't think he will win and I don't think, you know, but again, I don't know anything about politics. I didn't think Trump would win the primary in 2016. So what do I know, right? For all I know Vivek wins and beats Trump, but I don't think him playing this game gives me any confidence that he's somebody I want to support and want to be a part of.  But then I look at some of the other stuff he has and it's just this mishmash and I'm very worried about the whole thing. Hookam says, I recently talked to an Indian co-worker about the Ukraine war and they told me that why doesn't Ukraine stop fighting? They can't win and it's costing lives. I said force only responsible to force. What do you say? Well, I mean, I find this line of reasoning bizarre. I hear it all the time. You know, all that's happening in Ukraine is they're going to die. So why don't they just stop fighting and stop dying? Well, because if they stop fighting, then Putin takes Kiev and there is no Ukraine anymore and then now puppets of Kiev. And I remember saying way back, you know, in American history from a long, long time ago by one of the founders of America. And I think it says something like, give me liberty or give me death. I mean, I come from a country, Israel, that keeps fighting and most wars, if you had to predict the outcome in advance, you would say there's no way they're going to win and it's still true even today that long-term, are we really convinced Israel's going to win long-term, given its geopolitical stand? Who knows? And yet they keep fighting and some of them dying. You know, why are these kids willing to fight and die? What's up, right? Because life acquires that. Life acquires fighting in certain circumstances. And if, if your response is, I'm never going to risk my life because life is the standard, right? So I'm never going to risk my life. And even when the autocrats come and when the theocrats come and the, and the, you know, I'm not going to fight because my life is important. I want to stay alive. Yeah. Then your life is the life of a slave and your life is the life of a, not as an individual. So of course the Ukrainians are fighting. They're fighting because they do not want to live under Putin's thumb. They do not want to live. Now put aside the question of can they win. I think they can. I think they will. He, I'll make a prediction for you over the next four weeks. I expect Ukraine to have a major breakthrough in the south against the Russians. That's, that's my prediction, right? And, and you know, I'll be doing a show in the next few days, weeks, kind of giving you an update on what's going on in the front, which leads me to suggest that. But it's not an issue of, you know, the 300, the Spartan 300, think they were going to beat the Persians. You fight for your values. You fight for civilization. You fight against the barbarians. You, you, you try to stop the barbarians from sacking your homes and raping your wife and daughter and, and, and destroying what you have. And so I don't understand this. Why don't the Ukrainians just put down their arms? Cause if they put down their arms, they're all dead. It's why the Israelis don't put down their arms. Cause if they put down their arms, they're all dead.  Even if you know you're going to lose, you fight back. At least that's what anybody was self-esteem. And one of the things I admire about Ukraine right now, one of the reasons I support Ukraine is they've shown they have self-esteem. I admire Zelensky. I know that's not popular these days. I admire Zelensky because he's shown real courage, real self-esteem. He's shown a willingness to fight against initiation of force, to fight against the bully. I like people who fight against bullies.  I'm not just going to hand myself over to the barbarians. So, I mean, that's a longer answer that you probably want to give your coworkers. But it's unbelievable to me that people think this way. What if they were invading you? So if the Russians were, I don't know where you are, but wherever you workplaces, if the Russians won the outskirts of your city and Putin was going to enslave you all, would you say, well, I'm suddenly not going to fight because I might die if I fight. I'm just going to surrender the city to him. Well, you know.  You got to fight even sometimes if you know you're going to lose. I mean, I don't know how much you know about the story of the Spartan 300, but they lost. But they bought enough time to save Greek civilization and arguably to save what we today consider Western civilization. I'm not sure if the Spartans hadn't fought the Persians off and held them back for a while, if Western civilization evolves the way it evolved into what it is today. The good part of it anyway. You know, so you got to fight, you got to fight evil. God, you got to fight evil. When it's threatening you, I mean, I'm not, I'm not arguing you should go to Ukraine to fight them over there. But right now, the easy thing to do is to support the people fighting it over there so you don't have to fight it literally yourself. All right, Jamie. Hey, Ron, big fan. Oh, it's first time super chat. Thank you, Jamie. Really appreciate it. What is the wall of the president of the United States in a capitalist government that acts as an, that acts as a necessary good, but not as a necessary evil as you put it?  One is farm policy, which cannot be delegated and it's not delegated elsewhere, although Congress has a role when it comes to declaring wars and things like that. But managing farm policy, managing, dictating, in other words, thinking through and making decisions about what is in the self interest, what is rights protecting for the citizens of your country. What is rights protecting, implying vis-a-vis your relationship with China, Ukraine, Russia, and so on, which is not straightforward, not easy, and not obvious. And that would be the wall of a president and his administration. The second is it would still be a Congress. Congress would still pass laws, for example, laws that help define property rights and so on. And it would be part of, it's the executive's responsibility to execute on those laws, so to run a healthy, prosperous patent office and make sure that we have laws that keep up with evolving technologies vis-a-vis patents and other forms of property rights protections. But you know, it's not a huge role in laws of fake capitalism. It just isn't. There's not a lot that needs to be done. And indeed, I don't think that, I think presidents in the 19th century didn't have much to do. There wasn't a lot to do. Congress didn't meet very often in the 19th century, because Congress didn't have much to do. And I think in a Lazarific capitalist society, the Congress doesn't have a lot to do, and the president doesn't have a lot to do. They get to execute on what the Congress passes, but Congress passes very few laws. They get to make sure that, you know, they run the military. Maybe there's certain things that are federal crimes, so they run an FBI-like organization. They run a patent office. And that's about it. There's no post office. There's no regulatory bodies. There's, you know, there's none of this other stuff. Everything else is a lot of it's left to the states, but of course the states can't violate rights either, so they're pretty small. And Congress legislates. So pretty, pretty minor role, pretty minor role. Mainly farm policy. Mainly farm policy. Thanks, Jamie. Thanks for the support. Fendt Harper says, doesn't Ukraine mean outlier in reference to its relationship to Russia during the USSR? Do you think it would be a good move to change the name of Ukraine as a way of putting USSR in the past even further? I do not know what Ukraine means, so I don't know if it means outlier, but it doesn't matter, right? It's a name of a country. It's a name of a particular political entity. And the fact that it had that name during the USSR, it shouldn't matter when I older, right? The USSR was bad and evil and should be taught that way. Ukraine, actually Ukraine as a political entity, Kiev certainly as the capital of political entity as a long history going back hundreds of years. No, I don't see why one would do that. It seems like it's unimportant the particular, what the word in particular means. It is a proper name at this point. It's a proper name defining a particular political entity in a particular geographic area. And that has nothing to do with the USSR. All right, let's go back to our panel. Thanks to the Super Chat. Oh, Gopal. Thank you to Gopal Gabur, who came in with $100. Really, really appreciate that. Got us a little closer to our goal. Questions from now on, $20 questions. If you're going to come in with a question and please do. It helps. All right, let's see. How's my screen laid out? Oh, we lost somebody. Did we lose somebody? Why are you still there? All right, Brian, you up first.  And you already sort of touched on the answer in my last question to you, but I don't ever remember in my history classes learning about the Russian Revolution. Maybe I was asleep that day. But in We The Living, Rand has several passages where Andre is described as like this heroic figure fighting against like real oppression. And I was just wondering what life was like under the czar. Did the communists have real grievances that were legitimate? And did Rand ever comment about the czarist government? Obviously, she hated the communists, but did she ever talk about the government prior to the communist takeover? Yeah. So though I don't know, I'm not sure where, and there might be some references in We The Living maybe, but yeah, I mean, look, I mean, she generally had a very negative view of Russia. Pre-communist, post-communist, that matters. Her view of Russia was very negative. It was a hyper-collectivistic society. Hyper-mystical society still is collectivist and mystical. And she hated the czar. She hated the idea of a czar and the kind of authoritarian nature of a czar. She considered Russia as of the communist revolution as a capitalist, right? It did not, and pre-industrial, it was still a very poor country while there had been reforms in the late 19th century and early 20th century to try to get rid of serfdom, to try to get rid of the system of serfs, semi-slaves. There were only partial reforms. Individuals did not have rights. They were clearly oppressed. The aristocracy lived at a different life than the common people. And it wasn't because of a skill or ability or something extraordinary like that. The aristocrats were there because of birth. She had a mildly positive view of aristocracy, I think, or aristocrats, not aristocracy, but aristocrats, because she saw some nobility in the culture that the aristocrats created. But she hated the system that allowed them to run the world based on where they were born, who they were born to, based on genes and blood and all of that. So she despised a system built on aristocracy. She hated Russia of before, but she hated the Communists more because at least in the Russia of 1916 there was some ability, some freedom, particularly for middle class that was working. You could make money. You could have some elements of freedom. But I think the character in The Living is somebody who comes from a very poor background, much more oppressed, not middle class. And yes, that was a pretty horrific life and a very, very oppressed life. The Tsar, like all kings, almost all kings that manifested political power were very, very, very oppressors. So it was bad before and even worse after. Thank you. All right, Andrew. Yeah, I'm going to jump off of something that Leonard Peacock said, which was something to the effect of that he thought athletes have the best psychologies. And I was going to ask you, I mean, do you think that professional athletes are more benevolent than other subgroups of the population? And I have some thoughts on this. But what do you think? If so, why would you think that is? I think there's something to it. I don't remember the context. I don't remember Leonard saying that. And I don't remember the context in which he said it. So I don't want to comment on what he said specifically. But it seems to me that there's something very healthy about sports. I've talked about this in the past. Sport is the one realm in human life today, in modern life, where ability is everything, where ability matters and ability is celebrated and ability is rewarded uniterally and spiritually. And where to be confident, to be arrogant in a healthy sense, to be cocky to what's the term they use in sport to? Swagger. You know, kind of the swagger. Yeah, the swagger. But to tell the world how good you are is completely acceptable and completely everybody accepts it. Everybody gives it a thumbs up. Everybody really respects it. I mean, think about put aside professional sports. Think about minute bowl, the great 100 meter, the fastest man in the world ever, I think, right? Both in the 100 and 200. Well, think about somebody says boxing. Think about Muhammad Ali. I mean, Muhammad Ali just had this exuded this amazing confidence and amazing benevolence. And he was going to beat anybody. No matter when, no matter what age, he was going to do it. And he could always, he always thought he could come back and he always could connect. As a Celtic fan, how about Larry Bird? Well, Larry Bird, yes. I mean, the cockiness, the kind of, I'm going to score 41 points today. I think in one game he said and he went ahead and scored 41 points. I mean, that's pretty extraordinary. And, but think about minute bowl. I mean, think about how he celebrated, how he, you know, in that last five meters and 100 meter dash, how he'd raise his hands because he knew he'd won and he'd beaten the field by such a, and it is arrow thing.  And he just exuded that joy that comes from, I've achieved my values, I've achieved my goals. I wanted to be the best and I am the best. And it's just to see that is just, is just phenomenal. Or to watch these, you know, whether it's Larry or even Magic Johnson, they just saw a, I just saw a, a documentary about Magic and kind of the, just this commitment to winning is, is, is work ethic that came from that. Or think about, you know, Michael Jordan. I mean, Magic, Michael, I mean, or LeBron, how hard they work, how committed they are to that work.  Like people put you down. Like if you go, you go into the office early, they make fun of you. But if you're LeBron and you get up at 5am before game and to practice your shots. I just said you're onto somebody. Oh, I work a lot. And they said, I'm sorry. And I said, no, I like working. Yeah. Sorry for me. Yeah. So there's something very healthy about that environment. Now, unfortunately, there's also something among, among I think more modern times, there's something very materialistic and a lot of young kids because they make so much money so early in professional sports. They get caught up in the materialism of it. They waste their money. They live a lifestyle that probably is not very smart. Even Magic. I mean, he didn't get aids by accident. He got aids very much, but because of the activities he was engaged in. So, you know, there is something. I don't know if it's healthy about it. That partially comes from the fact that they make so much money and there's so much in the center of attention. It's such a young age and so immature. Yeah. That's interesting. I don't know if their role models and their personal lives necessarily. I mean, but I think when it comes to their profession, they're, they're rational. Yeah. And they follow a lot of the objectivist principles implicitly. You know, they're selfish. They're successful in anything. Sure. But in sports, we still celebrate that success. And in every other realm of life, we're cynical towards that success. And that's the difference. Thank you. All right. Ray Roy, what Ray Roy. There we go. Yeah, Ray couldn't make it. A couple of two, three weeks ago, someone asked a question or made a point that when you're being interviewed, you will say from time to time, I've heard it. I don't care about the poor. You then went on to explain to us, the audience of your show, that what you mean by it, you don't care about the rich either. You don't care about people. It's a particular subgroup. But you care about having me. I agreed with that. But. Oh, he also, the person who called also said that by saying, you don't care about the poor, you're giving the other side the moral high ground. And your point was, yeah, if you believe in altruism, you are. So I agree with what you said, but there's something else because. I owe two and bar bothered when I hear you say, I don't care about the poor. I know what you mean. I mean, I've been involved with the project of wisdom for hundreds of years, but. The audience is a mixed bag, even of your show, this is mixed bag, but when you're being interviewed, it's who knows what is out there. So I think when you say, I don't care about the poor. My concern is. I even sort of bristle a bit because I'm thinking of the audience thinking he's not very nice. He's mean. So I think without explaining. I agree that you shouldn't just simply say, I don't care about the poor. I don't think I've ever said, I don't care about the poor without explaining.  I want to see it. I don't record everything you say. I'm sorry. I don't think I've ever said it without explaining. Now it could be that that turns you off so much that you don't hear my explanation. Maybe my explanation wasn't very good. That's possible. But there's no way I've ever said, I don't care about the poor and don't explain it. I always do. I know enough about. What that means and what impact it has on my audience and know that I have to explain it. Sometimes I do it for purely rhetorical reasons. It creates cognitive dissonance and gives me an opening to explain in an interesting way. But I always have a follow-up. I've never said, I just don't care about the poor. I'll start turning my tape recorder on. I'll see you next year. No reference to which interview I've said that. I want to, I want somebody to show me that because it, I don't think it's ever happened. And it's, you know, in, in some of my video, the videos that have gone viral where I said stuff like that, I always explain it. Now some people don't want to listen to my explanation. And maybe my explanation is not that good, but there's no way. I agree completely. You can just say, I don't care about the poor. It's meaningless. And it doesn't really explain anything. But I always go out and say what I mean by that. Who are the poor? You know, what is, what is, what is the whole thing? What's the context?  And I don't care about the rich. I care about the thumb. Or I say, I keep getting these questions about, what about the poor this? What about the poor that? What about the poor? I don't care about the poor. Except what I care about is ambitious people and, and ambitious poor. And what I want is to create an environment where they, so I always say stuff like that. It's never just floating out there. And if I do this, I should be spanked. I'll send you a note if I hear it again. There you go. I'll send you a note if I hear it again. Somebody should get out that little ruler that my, my teachers in London used to use on me. They used to have these rulers and we used to wear shorts and long socks. And there was a space, you know, in your, in your leg. There was, there was even a winter that was uncovered.  And nice, nice. Yeah, that was, that was moderate as compared to my dad. So he didn't do it often. He did, I think three times, but it left an impression. He can't remember any of it, which is convenient. But yeah, I mean, it's, it's, yes, I deserve it. If I say it as a floating out there and with no context, I agree completely. All right, let's see. Adam. And then Nick, and then I see Pines joined us. I don't have a prepared question, but there is something that I wanted to check with you. Maybe you know something about it, which is that here in Southern California at least, it's not used to being on waiting lists for any kind of healthcare. If I need it, it's available right away. This month, I first came across waiting lists for physical therapy. Yep. Do you know anything what must might have caused physical therapy to have become so scarce that all the best physical therapists have been waiting this? I'm not sure, but I'm surprised you don't have, you don't have a waiting list for doctors because there is objectively a shortage of doctors in the United States broadly, generally, and in California as well. I know my, I had a concierge doctor for many years, and he retired early because he'd had enough, even though he was a concierge doctor, he'd had enough of the system and it just warmed down and he just retired early. And there's just not, I mean, it's a reality. There's just not being enough doctors being trained in medical schools to fill all the openings from doctors who are just retiring, never mind moving out of state. I think the same is true of generally people in the healthcare space. There's a massive shortage of nurses. There's a shortage of physical therapists. And it might be that in your geography, there's no shortage of doctors, but maybe, you know, in Orange County there is, because for some specialists, I know I had a weight in Orange County. I couldn't just go in and see them. So they were weightless. But there is this massive, there is a major shortage driven by socialized medicine, not surprising. So less, the lack of attractiveness, but also more importantly than that, the American Medical Association, 20 years ago lobbied medical schools in the government to admit fewer students into medical schools. And there was, now I don't know, that doesn't affect physical therapy, but I think generally in the healthcare space, there's just being this, you know, what happens usually with licensing, and that is they keep, they restrict the supply. And of course the flip side of that is that our immigration policy does not allow us to bring in, because for example, nurses, massive shortage of nurses in the United States, and certainly after COVID, a big shortage of nurses. Why can't we just, there are lots of nurses out there in the world who would love to come to America to work, and it's very, very difficult to get them visas. So I think it's a combination of not enough being trained and not being willing to import them into the United States. Well, I don't know what may be happening is that medical schools and essentially with one exception, except for my allergist, all my other doctors are associated with the places where people with political pool also get their medical care. The medical schools and the research hospitals like Cedar Sinai and City of Hope. If you're in the LA area, you shouldn't have to wait for doctors because the great hospitals, as you said, and as you said, they're well connected, well funded, and lots of doctors. It's an area of flesh with them. But, and also there, they get priority when it comes to H1B visas. So I've seen many immigrant nurses at places like City of Hope. Yep. And you can confirm the, from the Philippines. Yes, Philippines produces a lot of nurses, but if you look at the numbers, there was a huge, before COVID, there was a big push to bring in Filipino nurses into the U.S. But it's become much, much more difficult since Trump. And Biden hasn't changed anything with this. Getting legal visas to come and work in the United States has become more and more difficult. And nursing is one of the areas where we're really feeling a shortage in most of the U.S. And yeah, places like the Philippines, I forget what other, there are a number of countries that produce a lot of nurses. Oh, like into England, UK is a huge importer of nurses and doctors. And they're importing nurses from places like Zimbabwe. Nobody wants to stay and work. And one of the reasons you get a nursing degree in Zimbabwe is to get out of there, right? Because you know that globally you can go to Europe, you can go to UK, and maybe one day you'll be able to come to the U.S. to do your nursing. So there is a lot of supply in the world. And there's a lot of demand in the U.S. and in the Western world, because it's aging populations and not enough training of locals. And yet supply will not match demand because of politics, which is truly sad. Thanks Adam. Nick, some reason I can't hear you. Now you're muted. I think something in your settings has changed because even though you're unmuted I can't hear you. Can you guys hear him? Can anybody hear him? No, nobody can hear you. No. Let me just check. Yeah, nothing on my side. So it's as to do something with the setting of your microphone if it's plugged in or anything like that. No, now you're muted. So now I certainly can't hear you. And let me take a, why don't you play along with Nick and I'm going to take a question from Pini. Hi. Do you hear me? Yeah. Great. So by the way, just for the previous questions, I'm in Canada and I can tell you that the situation here is way, way, way worse than the U.S. I've been waiting for a family doctor over four years on a waiting list. Over four years. Lucky I'm quite healthy and I don't need to see much of a doctor. Four years I'm still waiting. So, so Canada is way worse. Everybody said the Canada system, the Canada system for anybody that lives in Canada, we know it's the worst. Absolutely. So that's just kind of a comment is speaking about elections. Okay. I hear, I think I heard quite a few objectives that want like the pure thing. And if the candidate is not pure, they will not go for it. In my opinion, it's better take the least worse, the least bad. A, there will be less damage. B, some good stuff like we have conservative here, that they are not pure capitalists, but they have some good things and they have some not so good things, but it compared to what we have right now. For example, the Libra and Trudeau, it's for me, it's a hundred times better. The same thing in U.S. or any other country. My opinion is better to have the, the least of the two. So I think, I think pretty much all objectives agree on that principle. You want to get the less of two evils, except sometimes we don't agree on who is the less of two evils, right? So sometimes we don't agree who is more evil, right? So I consider Trump to be the worst president in American history. And I think I would vote for almost anybody over Trump or I wouldn't vote at all, but I would never be able to bring myself to vote for Trump. Now, you might disagree with that. I know a lot of people in America disagree with a lot of objectives disagree with me, but it's not because I think Trump should be perfect. It's because I think Trump is so bad that I'm not willing to, I can't bring myself to vote for him. So they're going to be circumstances where you say, I'm going to vote like I voted, you know, people will hate me for this, but I voted for John Kerry in 2004. I know. Not because I like John Kerry, not because I thought he was the perfect objective as candidate, but because I thought he was the less of two evils. I thought another four years of George Bush was going to be such a disaster for the country that I thought that this, that I wanted a Democrat there when the disaster happened. And I have, when I look back on that, it's one of the proudest votes I've ever done. Because when I look at what happened post that vote, right? We got, we got Fallujah. We got the surge. We got the disaster in Iraq that was George Bush. Then we got the financial crisis, which was blamed on capitalism because George Bush was viewed as a capitalist. Imagine if he, if he rocked in the financial crisis would have been blamed on a Democrat. Then Obama never would have got elected. And if Obama never got elected, then Trump would have never got elected. And I look like a genius by wanting Kerry to be president 2004. So the way I think about how to vote is I think strategically long-term. I think about what, what are the consequences of this person, not just in his four years, but what does he, what kind of atmosphere in the country does he create? What kind of pattern of voting does he create over the long run? And that's how I make my choices. So I voted for Romney. I couldn't vote for Obama or McCain. They were both, were so awful. But then Obama turned out to be worse than I thought he was. So, and Romney was better than McCain. Still there, right? He wasn't, he certainly wasn't perfect, right? But I voted for Romney because I thought, you know, better than Obama. Trump-Hillary, I couldn't vote for Trump or Hillary. I thought they were both so bad that I couldn't vote for either one. And if you go back to Inran, Inran voted for Nixon at least once, maybe twice. She voted early on, she voted for all different, I mean, she voted for FDR. In 1932, she voted for FDR White because she viewed the issue in 1932 prohibition. And because FDR was against prohibition, she voted for FDR, right? But didn't he want to introduce the new deal and all the craziest, the worst thing that's happened? It's probably a mistake, but she did vote for FDR. She wasn't looking for, point is she wasn't looking for a perfect candidate. FDR clearly wasn't. And then between Jimmy Carter and Reagan, she didn't vote because she both was bad. And she was right about Reagan because what was her complaint about Reagan? She said, what Reagan is going to do is bring religion into the heart of the Republican Party. He's going to make, he's going to make the Republicans completely beholden to the religious right. Absolutely right. Now you might say it was worth it because of everything else he did. And she would say, you know, maybe not, you know, given, given what's happened to the Republican Party since then, maybe not. So it's, there's no objectivist position on who to vote for. Leonard Peacock and I ran didn't even agree, for example, in 1980 who to vote for. I mean, and it's always the case you should vote for the less of two evils unless you think that both parties are so evil that you can't vote for either one of them. But the standard cannot be perfection. Absolutely. You can't, you cannot be, you know, I'm only going to, and I think the nice thing about Canada's conservatives, the nice thing about them. I mean, they're terrible and so many things, but at least they're not religious nuts, right? At least they don't have that. Canada is a secular country, religions. Nobody cares about it. So it's much easier to vote for the English conservatives in the UK or to vote for Canadian conservatives.  Thanks. But it's complicated, you know, making kind of the choices. All right, Nick, did you fix it? My mic working. Yes, it is working. All right, let's get into it. I just wanted to, you've, you've viewed that Trump is almost assert a certainty to be the nominee. Right now, what makes you think that with with all these with all I know his strategy is going to be to stall and until 2026, you know, all the, the felony charges of the 91 felony charges that he has and launch endless appeals.  That's the strategy. It's more process. So, but what makes you think I mean, some of these, from what I listened to some legal scholars, some of these, some of these amendments will move real fast, especially in Washington and Georgia on the court docket. What makes you think that what that won't put a caboose and also the 14th amendment that, you know, that that's going to be on appeal. That's going to be a roadblock. I don't know who's filing the 14th amendment who are standing so I don't know how that is going to work through the legal process. And when it reaches the Supreme Court, I mean, that would be really fascinating if that is the reason why he's particularly given that he appointed the three conservative justices. So I, you know, it'll be interesting to see, look, certainly there is a real possibility that because of his legal problems, he doesn't get it. But right now it appears that Republicans are willing to vote for him no matter what. And, you know, all this is known, right? And he gown is more than like 54% in a field of nine credible candidates. He gets 54%. What happens if it's one on one and he starts losing the popularity battle, and they see he can't be bite by biting no matter what. But, but then the question is, first of all, you have to get to one on one. So if the Republicans are coalesced around one candidate early, if they call this really early around one candidate, maybe they have a chance. But, you know, maybe it's that I don't have as much faith in there in there in Republicans as you do you think that at some point Republicans will look at his legal troubles and come to their senses and vote for the alternative. I'm not convinced of that. I think that they're digging themselves in to be committed. You think about how every candidate on that stage with the exception of Christian Hutchinson said, this is all just a witch hunt. Right. This is, this is worse. This is a banana Republic. This is the government of the United States, using the justice of 100 go after political rival. And this is the worst thing that's ever happened. And Republicans are just eating that up they love it. The real view of a Republic of a banana Republic is the banana Republic is a sitting president trying to overturn an election and trying to keep himself in office. That's the banana Republic, not what the Justice Department is doing the justice model is doing his job. So, I mean, but once they see the polls and he's 15 points behind and attrition starts to set in any self destructs. I mean, he's totally unhinged. Well, you know what I know it right. So, you know, that's put on, you know, the rats all be jumping ship they're already turning against them on the indictments. You know, so I hope you're right. But then I hope you're right and but the sooner it happens the better because because you need an alternative candidate and who's the candidate if it's not Trump. Who are you betting on now. Well, it's just going to be one guy we don't know who it is Romney has come out and said, by April we got to have one candidate by April. April. So, I mean, I think that's I think they have to have a candidate before people I think I think they need a candidate. They need to have one candidate before Super Tuesday. It's not and that's March. It's not clear to me that if they have seven candidates running on Super Tuesday, and Trump wins it that anybody can then go on to beat him. So you need somebody. You need people to drop out and I really don't understand why all these marginal candidates are sticking in. They should be, you know, there is a there is an advantage to smoke filled rooms. What we need is a smoke filled room with a bunch of Republican mohors, as we say in Yiddish or Hebrew or whatever, deciding who to put up there against Trump because at this rate, he's going to take it you need you need one person or you need right now we should have three, you know, and and and that's it and I would I would do Christie, the Santas and Haley. And those three should go up against Trump Christie, just because he's the only one who has any boss to really go after Trump, and Haley and the Santas, you know, would be one of the two of them. One of the two of those should be there the ultimate candidate. What do you think happens to Trump should he not. Let's say it's a nominee but he doesn't win the election. What do you think happens to Trump with all these indictments and felony charges. He gets prosecuted. He fights them maybe you know I think ultimately what he really wants is to cut a deal. He doesn't want to go to jail so I think you'll probably, I think you'll probably cut a deal. How can you cut a deal and four different jurisdictions and maybe Arizona and maybe New Jersey to come. It's impossible. I'm not sure he loses New York New York court case is pretty frivolous. The January 6 case is not is not a slam dunk. The documents case is the one case that is a slam dunk that one. He's going to enjoy just probably close to slam dunk but not slam dunk but but like I like you to prosecute of being found guilty. The one that where it seems like everything is lining up against him is the document case. Now you know one of the people who was on his side flipped and is telling the feds everything so yeah he was clearly doing obstruction of justice. I don't know what kind of penalty you get for that you literally go to jail for that or do you just get a fine or what actually happens to you I don't know I don't think Trump is going to be in jail. I don't think that is going to happen. What about house arrest with with a bracelet so you might get a house arrest. I'm humiliated. I'm all for humiliating Trump. All right. All right I've got a few super chats here. Let's see Gopal says what if the bully in North Korean government is the North Korean Korean government and the risk of standing up to the North Korean government is death. Should the North Korean citizen stand up to the North Korean government. Yes. I mean yes. Should the slave rebel. Yes. Should the guy living in the Soviet Union rebel or at the very least try to escape. Yes.  I mean look at look at these these North Korean refugees who managed to escape and managed to get out of North Korea. So people have done it. Now many died on the way. I consider them great heroes of the fact that they heroes in terms of their own life they took their life seriously enough to be willing to risk death in order to get out of North Korea. But if you value your life you cannot tolerate living in a dictatorship and here I encourage you to read we the living.  The communist system and and you know and she's she can't stay quiet under communist system and she can't. So she's going to die one way or the other and she knows it there's just no other option. And if you're North Korean. What are you going to do you can't live life is meaningless in the North Korean system. So you need to get out of there and so take whatever risks are necessary and try to escape. That's my advice to all North Koreans not that I think of many of them are listening to the show.  There's nothing worse than a living death and that's what people in North Korea experience and and German should have stood up the Nazis. And you got to fight for your values you got to stand up for your values what does life mean if you're not willing to fight for what is yours for for your values are then they're not your values values that things that you act to gain or keep if you're not acting then they're not your values and then you're living a value less life and that's not really a life worth living. And I said that with a God said that I think the other day when we talk about a cancer why but we talked about concentration camp. I would like to believe that I would have died in a concentration camp and taken a couple of Germans with me. I would like to believe I wouldn't have just marched into the gas chambers and died that I would have knowing completely that I would die I would try to make it a fighting death. And I think that's what you need to do. Even if you're not literally dying but there's no other hope, you're not exiting. Richard said instead of saying, I don't care about the poor with saying I don't feel guilty about the for some better semantics matter. Again, it depends on what you're trying to achieve in the, you know, in the context of the question in the context of what you're going to say after what you said before. I can't remember a time when I regretted saying I don't care about the poor because it served a particular pedagogical function and again if, if, if I'm wrong, and the cases where I did it, and I was mistaken and I'm willing to be shown to be mistaken. But, you know, and I don't think that I don't feel guilty about the poor has the same problem you've got to elaborate you've got to say what you mean. And, and, and, and because people don't understand it so no matter what you say, there's no one line sentence that you're going to get away with talking about the poor. You've got to explain. So you've got to, you've got to have at least some time, and you've got to decide what you're going to say based on how much time you're going to have to explain what you actually mean. Thank you Richard. All right, let's do these quickly. I've said logistical questions since it's a contributors episode for money contributors by PayPal or Patreon. I think I mean different between the two whatever's easier for you guys. Michael says you say humans under 18 don't have for rights, because they have a hard time projecting into the future, but many adults are irrational and don't project into the future what's the difference. This is that before a certain age, you just don't have enough of the frontal cortex actually developed enough to project into the future so it's literally a an issue of ability not of, you just don't have enough brainpower to do it. It's a biological issue. Adulthood is a biological issue. It's not an experience issue and sometime between the age of 16 and 22. You develop that ability and we kind of take 18 because enough of that ability is there to be able to project but you can't blame a 10 year old for not projecting into the future. You blame a 25 year old. Absolutely blame them morally blame because it's your moral responsibility to use your mind when you're 25 when you're when you're 10 you don't have a mind that can do that. Michael says the mind once enlightened cannot then become dark. I think that's right if it's if it's truly enlightened. Paul, thank you for becoming a member.  If Abraham had killed his son Isaac would Jews and Israel exist or would a nation have come from his other son Ishmael. Well, didn't a nation come up with his other son Ishmael. I think is the Arabs. I think I think that's accepted that Ishmael kind of founded the Arab nations. So I don't know if Abraham kills his son, then God probably arranges another miracle and he has another son. I mean, don't don't minimize God's ability to get his his way. So was Abraham's wife when she had the son it was he you know you you know it was she was like 70 or so 60 or something. The way past. This is why he had brought in a mistress to have a son have a child from the mistress. And then then his wife got pregnant even though she was way too old to be pregnant. So God can do what he wants to do. Michael is millennium ran it is millennial ran fans channel undercutting the seriousness of objectivism. I don't know who millennial fan ran fans. Oh, I don't know what that channel is. Maybe I don't know. Michael asked what impresses you most about the slow growth of the movement or are there real signs of up to be optimistic. I'm optimistic and what makes me most optimistic are the young intellectuals that I'm an institute is training. There's a lot of talent and ability there. What makes me most depressed is just, you know, the numbers that are not going fast enough and significantly enough, and some of the lack of seriousness that people who claim to be objectivists take these ideas with. Jacob says what qualities in your wife switched the relationship from like to love. Was it a sudden or gradual realization. Oh God. I think it was sudden. So I don't think he was gradual. I definitely think it was sudden. Anyway, you're getting too personal. Will the secret service have to protect Trump while he's in prison. Yes, I assume so. Apollo, I want my friend back.  I don't know who you are. All right, Apollo is using my chat to communicate with his friends. Well, I don't know how anyone can't pull for Zalinsky's fight for Ukraine. Heroism depends on self esteem. Absolutely. I don't get it either, but a lot of people don't or not. I'm reading about the prime mover theory from Aquinas from Aristotle Aquinas that proves the existence of God. What's wrong with this approach. Did they get the law of causality wrong. Yes, they got the law of causality when there has to be something that pushes that has to be something that starts. It doesn't have to be something that pushes the definite. The law of causality is not a lob of billion balls. The love causality is the, you know, the, the, the law of identity applied to action. So it's the identity of the universe to have a particular nature that doesn't it doesn't have to be quote a cause. And of course, who caused the prime mover. If there was a prime mover, if the universe needed a prime mover, then didn't the prime mover need a prime mover. If causality holds, then doesn't it hold for the prime mover as well. So you don't solve the problem. You don't solve any of the problems by positing a God because any question about the universe that doesn't add up. It doesn't add up when you ask the same question about God. All right, let's do a quick round. If you guys have questions, make them short with the panel. And so let's start with Andrew. Sure. What's the update on the nightclub situation. Actually better. The, the, the, some extent they got, there's probably some fatigue from fighting with police has come a few times. So they, they have, they are quieter than are quiet. They woke my wife up last night, I think 2am. So it's not quiet completely, but it's much better than it was.  So everybody's yelling and having a good time. So it's a lot more of that that wakes us up and they still have a valet there. We're still in court with them. So we're still, we're still going after them in court, particularly over the valet issue right now. There's new, the good part is there's new audience ordinances in San Juan that says they can't serve alcohol after 1am. And, and that they can't the certain decibel for how much noise could be projected onto the outside. The problem is, will anybody enforce the new ordinances now given that the new, I think they will be enforced and I think that will solve our problem because I think they're going to have to, they're going to have to, you know, prohibitions are fine in on about, you know, if they if they restrict noise. And they restrict businesses from creating noise after a certain hour in residential neighborhoods. You don't have a way to inflict noise on your neighbors freely and they have to be some standards for that. Good luck. Yeah, boy. I got nothing. Yeah, did you ever see the movie broadcast news? Yes, a long time ago. Okay. Yeah, because I was just going to say I always, that's one of my favorite movies and I always thought Holly Hunter would would have been a perfect agony. It had a wheel benevolence to it. There's actually, yeah, there's a, there's, I looked it up just to make sure I get it right. There's a, there's a real quick scene in the book where her boss is like sarcastically saying to her he says it must be nice to always believe you know better to always think you're the smartest person in the room. And I obviously I can't deliver the line like she does but she says no it's awful. And like she says it with like almost whispers it and like with tears almost in her eyes and it just like perfectly sums up like, you know the need to be with your intellectual friends and things like that so I always thought she'd make a great agony so. Yeah, I really enjoyed that movie I haven't seen it in many many many years I saw it when it first came out and then saw it again a few times but haven't seen it in a long time but that's a good movie. She was very good in it. I can't remember who the male leaders in it. But it's, but yes there's some there's some good female roles out there they have been over the years. Let's stand out. Alright, let's see Adam. No questions. Okay, Pini last one. Yeah, also a quick one I think looking at the to the world and to the different countries. Would which country would you think or you'd say it's really the the best country I use the word best country as far as capital is freedom quality of life. And related to that little bit the second I believe you left Israel in the 80s, which I left the same time. Because it was super socialist. But today it's completely different. Would you have left Israel in the situation of today. And I'm not talking the last couple months. So, yes, I think I still would have left Israel because what bothered me about Israel was not the socialism. What bothered me about Israel is the collectivism, the tribalism, the everybody's your cousin, everybody's your friend, everybody knows everybody else. There's no privacy in Israel. At least there wasn't. Maybe life is different today. I don't know. But in those days there was no privacy. Your neighbors could walk into your apartment anytime. There was just everybody and if you if you are on the road everybody wanted to give you advice everybody thought they were part of your family. I couldn't. That's super much more than the social, much more than socialism. In terms of which country is best to live. It's a very difficult question. I think overall in the end, I'd have to say the United States. Despite of everything is and it's much worse than when I first made the decision to come here in 1987. It's much worse, but so is the rest of the world. You know, I'm sure the countries that are very comfortable to live Australia, New Zealand, except during COVID, where they were horrible. Canada is probably pretty comfortable to live unless you're doing health care, and then it's horrible. And so New Zealand, New Zealand, you know, has in many respects is a much freer economy than the United States. If you look at the economic freedom index in New Zealand is far higher up than America's than the United States is. I think what's happened over the last 40 years since the 80s is it's flattened the differences are flattened. So the United States is to be much better. And now it's about the same. So could you live in Denmark today? Yeah, life Denmark is not bad. Could you live in Ireland? Ireland is an economic freedom index is higher than the United States. So Switzerland higher than the United States United States used to be number three. It used to be single Hong Kong, Singapore and US those three. And today the United States is like 1517. Right. And today it's in Hong Kong is gone. Right. Because the Chinese took up. So you've got Singapore and New Zealand, Switzerland, Ireland are the most economically free countries in the world. Do I want to live in any of those places? Now really particularly are now in New Zealand. I certainly would have thought about it pre COVID but after COVID what they did there. God, I don't know that I want to go to a place that just accepts that kind of lockdowns without any objections. I think we become more mediocre. Nobody really stands out as much and I would say there are lots of options. But in terms of the upside in terms of as an individual where you can do the most. It's still the US just partially because of size and energy and innovation and Silicon Valley and things like that that are still. You just don't have a Silicon Valley in Canada or in. You have it in Israel but but but even Israel is you know Israeli companies to really be successful often have to come to the US in order to really leverage themselves. You're on a lot of foreigners tend to still see America as a bastion of individualism. Do you think that that's accurate still comparative to the rest of the world or do you think that they are just behind the times. It's accurate but it's going right it's accurate but it's on decline. So it's still true that there's still more individualism here that in most countries Israel in spite of its success and in spite of that it's more individualistic today than I think it was in the 80s. It's the collectivism so deeply ingrained that tribalism so deeply ingrained that it's it's it's going to be very hard to get rid of and partially the existential situation in Israel makes it difficult for them to abandon it and then if you look at other countries. Yeah I mean America is still still coasting on its history and that history is pretty amazing and and it's coasting on that and that is pretty sad but look. People still live well in Australia they live well in New Zealand and you can find here and there things that you don't like about all these countries. But is an Australian going to be much better off in the United States versus staying in Australia. No, not much better off. So, whereas in the 1980s you could say America was really still significantly better than a lot of these other places. Yeah certainly Cuba is is not a good place to be right so the negatives are easy right the worst countries in the world are easy it's but at the upside it's hard. I was positive about the UK for a while. I thought the UK was a great place to live before COVID but the Conservative Party has done such a horrible job. And Brexit has been so damaging because the Conservatives screwed up that the UK is no longer quite as good of a place to live as it used to be. And it's getting poorer and and yeah it's depressing but we probably America probably is the best place to be. Alright everybody have a great rest of your weekend have a great time thank you to all the super chat is thank you to our panel, and I will see you all Monday morning. I think I've got a doctor's appointment in Puerto Rico talk about shortage of doctors in Puerto Rico, a doctor's appointment. I might be in and out in a half an hour and I might be there for five six hours. You never know. This is a new doctors I don't know what the procedure is. So I'm hoping that I'm there short period of time and I can come and do my my one 1pm show but there is a chance that I'm stuck there. And I have to miss miss the show but you know one of the many challenges of Puerto Rico, other than most of my doctors now I know exactly how the process works I've got I've got it down but this is a new doctors I'm not sure. Everybody have a great time. I have a great weekend. Bye.