what do you want the category to be parts of the body penis this is going great uh head okay go lungs okay press it oh um ovaries nice finger mouth immune system balls eyes dick gonads accounts as a different terminology oh nose uh sphincter ass uh huevos uh uh uh giblets giblets uh we went down to a mall i guess k k uh cock was a k that'll work that was a great category if i may say so myself hey welcome back to our stupid raxies of corbin i'm a physician he is not to do not take his medical advice yes always always do it whenever it is do it with your body anyways today we got a interview with the one and only the great irfan con that makes me happy he and sad at the same time he i feel like he should be a sir i know he's not british like when you like sir anthony hopkins i know it's because he's british but like he's bigger than that i feel like irfan i think i love that it's just like irfan you don't even need the last name you know somebody's massive in there just their aura when they don't need a last name looks like this is from 2015 uh your front con is wooing audiences east and west is the title he was and always will uh yes and i would it's been too long what was our last earphone film it's been way too long what was it one of the last was um the one with the taboo you the they moved to america namesake namesake was one of the last that was over a year ago i know there's no way that was it's one of the last if it wasn't the last it was like the second to last but i don't i don't know anyway that which is bad we we shouldn't go that long oh never he's two of them what's your favorite earphone film there uh indrani talking to microphone lunch box yeah okay besides the lunch box because it has no besides the lunch box box lunch well it's uh we're um life of pie i was just gonna say it really is for me he he's so beautiful in that movie and his narration and then the final moments there's no one who would have done the the the sensitivity and the humanness that he brought to that character brennan frazier i actually love brennan frazier in the same conversation as earphone no exactly but i don't use him to mock i actually like brennan frazier if i'm can appearing in danie boil's multiple academy award-winning film slumdog millionaire starring anglies oscar decorated life of pie i suppose in the end the whole of life becomes an act of letting go and featuring in mark webb's blockbuster the amazing spider we're not finished oh yeah he wasn't that's where enough are you gonna find the people's volunteer to watch as far as anyone's concerned is for a winter full shot but cairn has been catching the eye of directors in the west since his first international debut in mirrornair's 2006 film the namesake you know i feel a special kinship with google more than with any other writer soon after he was cast along side angeline a jolly in michael winterbottom's retelling of the kidnapping and murder of u.s journalist daniel no i never saw that i would love to see that no a mighty heart is what it's called what did he say is not involved but cairn's success is not limited to the silver screen in the u.s in his native india he is a household name countered among bollywood's leading men he should be a household name everywhere always that of a typical indian hero with more than 50 domestic films to his name his popular performances include modest characters from a village barba retired olympic athlete turned rebel helping him win scores of awards for his talents along the way this month on talk asia we're in mumbai at the home of internationally acclaimed bollywood star ifan khan i miss him so much so much if like we had started the channel three years earlier i know we might have had the opportunity to speak with him thank you you are one of india's best known exports to hollywood uh one of those rare bollywood stars with global appeal is this something that you set out to achieve i never thought of it never occurred in my mind that i could go there and i could work in those films but definitely in india i was looking kind of my kind of work where i could find myself where i could enjoy telling a story that was definitely a quest and uh it'll manifest in getting work in hollywood that i never imagined i never thought about it it just had happened automatically because it's one thing to be a big star in bollywood let alone make a name for yourself you know in the west i'm really fortunate you know i don't know what is the formula of that well what is the secret but i'm not going to tell you now is there any resentment towards your success here in india it's not a resentment it never was a resentment you know see the industry is uh they are looking for new talent all the time it's up to the talent whether they want they want themselves to be incorporated in that kind of story telling in this other part where you you have to make profit out of it so i've been very conscious of uh picking up stories which are viable so that's why you know i was not uh i could i could survive and i could i could convince people that you know and i could make few people uh easy with my own existence that you know i'm there i'll make money for you but i'll do my kind of work well i want to take you back to your beginnings you were the eldest son in an aristocratic muslim family from draupor your family didn't allow you to watch film and yet you were drawn to this medium yeah why is that i don't know it was a mystery i in my in my village where i'm from talk there was a theater uh besides our my my aunt's house so we used to go there and there was a gatekeeper who was also woman so you know we used to request her can we go inside can we go inside so she used to you know just let us in for 10 15 minutes and we used to watch the cinema and there was something you know which used to capture us and i thought this is something mysterious this is something i would like to do but i was very shy very very shy and i was not i was very thin and i was dark there was all everything which was against being an actor you know because i would think that if you were shy yeah acting wouldn't be the job for you yeah and also you'd be surprised films which are which takes you out of your life and gives you a kind of uh dream world for for for hours and for two hours and and make you make you forget about your own world so we and we have uh actors which are so-called good-looking smart you know pretty faces so i had nothing of that so i had not true many doubts about myself but there's a kind of drive which i couldn't shed well i i read somewhere that you said i was trying to connect to something that could make me feel more complete does someone say that would take a lifelong journey i was i was looking for engagement something which can engage me when i don't feel bored i started doing certain things and i i put a lot of a lot of hard work in that it was a training for air conditioning so i did uh you know with full sincerity and seriousness i did the training but then when i started going for practicals you know door to door that was a trauma and showing any conditions not for you yeah it was very very important tell me about your years at the national school of drama oh that was fantastic first thing that i was not eligible when i when i when i filled the form of national school of drama and uh my practical experience was not enough but i was so so compelled and so driven to get admission there i just you know i just lied i you know i failed you know names which i didn't do also not uncommon i don't know i got the admission especially back in the day not uncommon at all formula of acting and i started acting and so i i struggled there you know to understand and i used to question back in the day nobody could check yeah you get the internet now slowly slowly i i realized that it's it's you are your own teacher you have to find this not a one formula or one method which can make you act well you graduated and did many tv roles that you found those to be boring and at your work or you quit tv i did and the tv gave me a lot of practice and but that was a time when private channels were just coming in india and soaps of you know earlier we had series of 13 episodes or 26 episodes now there were series which are going on for 500 episodes 600 episodes so what what was happening in that that you you do one scene and if the the you know the content of the scene uh if the if liked by audience then what the producer and director used to do they used to keep repeating that pattern again and again in different episodes in different ways so i was getting you know really bored and then i started directing so i thought you know direction needs much more work than actor so it will engage me more you know it will keep me busy so i did few few episodes but then suddenly you know i out of the blue i got a chance which i was waiting for the warrior in the warrior yeah that changed my life so the film what film did asif kappadia was directing warrior he said don't do anything don't even say lines i just i just wanted to be in the situation and see where it takes me and i thought this is something this is what i was looking for as an actor and that was the time i i decided i am not going to produce i'm not going to direct television that's the first time i realized that life is showing me a direction so i should leave myself to that and see what happens a mighty heart which of course is the story about the kidnapping and murder of tender pearl were there any issues as an indian playing a fecustalian oh oh that's it that's a part one i guess oh sorry i didn't i i was ready to listen to your fun more me too did is there a video out there of your fun in in the soap operas because i'd love to see that i want to see that me too i kind of want to see that i would like to see that your fun in the beginning before he's your fun con in a soap opera i agree that's i know i know there's still a thing but it's not really the stepping stone that it used to be oh not at all because it used to be a stepping stone it it was it's not at all i know that directly from a man who's a friend of mine who directed soaps for 25 years one soap in particular and not only are there less soaps but they're viewed no differently as far as tv and film you might as well have been doing theater the whole time they see a soap opera on your resume you could have won a freaking Emmy for your soap opera don't care yeah and it used to be a big deal yeah yeah two things he said that i thought were interesting uh one was it was interesting that he brought up one of the typical things nois brought this up too that starting out that american actors don't ever have to think about in the same way and she it either didn't register or she just went past it but when he mentioned that he was dark dark yeah and then he's mentioned something else about his script selection and if he were around i'd want to ask him this because he said that he chose stories that were viable so in his selection it was more than just great storytelling i wonder how many stories he read that he thought the story itself was a magnificent story but he didn't find it to have a box office viability and so he he gave both it had to be a great story but it also had to have some semblance of box office viability for him to invest himself enough into it which is a an idea for me that i don't would never consider but it makes you wonder ought you consider that especially when you're at the level that he was at you you only have to consider that when you're at this exactly when you're at that level um and how often did he make decisions because you know he did there were times he knew he had to do something and box office viability had didn't matter whatsoever yeah yeah and i he was i know he turned down inception because no one wanted yeah him an inception and he turned it down i think to do the lunchbox which i'm obviously i'm glad i wish i could have worked out both both because i think more people would have known the wonderful man and actor that is irfan yeah if he was in that and it would have been a meaty role yeah as opposed to you know just uh in like Jurassic World where he's the the the owner of the park or whatever right um the or no it would have been a substantial his medias in Hollywood it was obviously the life of pie which a lot of people saw yeah but nothing i mean everybody thought of him here as a very recognizable supporting actor at best as far as the roles that he got not somebody who could carry a film not not who you actually was exactly was one of the greatest actors of all time right um and which is obviously there's a ton of actors in india and around the world that yeah don't realize that yeah of course but he's he's one of my favorites and i'm so sad he's gone yeah because i i love the man and i love his acting yeah he is one of the big losses of all time in cinema so 50 something is way too young yeah you can you can go back to the losses of james dean heath ledger philip seymour hoffman um earphones in that category somebody like 50s it's sickening it makes you sad to think how many more years of work you could have had ahead of him how many more films you could have made his basically half his life's work was cut short that's very sad it is anyways i know there's a bunch of his that we need to co-op cobs single i know is one black list is it blacklist i think that's with rishi something me no no and then there's um life in a metro yes that uh we have not seen recommend and of course anybody got those soaps just a clip we'd love to see a clip please let us know what our next earphone film should i want to get to one soon yeah i'm sick of not seeing his face yeah uh so let us know which i should be down below


As far as comic books are concerned, the reason we're seeing a resurgence in popularity is because we're coming out of the dark ages. This is Chichu. Welcome to my channel. Now, what I want to do in this video is sort of do a one-off video and reply to an email that came my way a few days ago actually, last five days or so. And the email was interesting, it was fun, and the questions were interesting, sort of asking me to share my opinion on a couple of topics regarding comic books, right? And comic books, since in my opinion comic books are sort of a reflection of our society as a whole. So as soon as I read this email and the two questions were asked, it sort of got the juices flowing, you know, you could go down so many different roads down this thing, right? So many rabbit holes regarding this, right? But I'm going to share my take after thinking about this for about three or four days, okay? So let me read you the email, okay? And what we're going to do is there's two questions being asked, or two choices being given for me to comment on, and I'm picking only one of them. So let's have a read through this, and we'll see where this takes us, I've taken some notes and stuff like this, okay? And we're going to call the person J because I don't know if it's okay to use people's first names, I never know this or last names and stuff like this. So we're going to call the person J, so this is J's email to me, like, hi Chih-Chou, I watch your YouTube channel for a couple of years now, regularly watching your comic book content. I'm a student studying at St. John Moores University in England, and I am currently in the process of creating a comic book based magazine, looking at different areas of comic book culture, including previews, reviews, and various stories about modern day issues, etc. I'm contacting you to see if you would like to partake in one of my stories. You have the choice of two subjects I will be writing about. Firstly, I am asking the question, are comic books too Americanized and patriotic, and I would love to get your perspective on this. The second story is about Netflix TV shows and blockbuster movies, and how they are launching comic books back into the limelight and making them popular again. I would greatly appreciate it if you would get back to me, please, and if you are interested, maybe you could make a YouTube video out of it, if so, that would be totally awesome. Thank you very much for your time, kind regards, J. And when I read this email I replied to Jay almost right away, I usually try to reply right away, if you send me emails and I haven't replied my apologies, if I don't get to an email it might just filter its way down and I might lose it. But I replied to Jay and we talked a little bit and stuff like this, and I was actually out of town so I just got back into town like just barely last night, today basically, they have a deadline on Monday, so I've done a little bit of research on this, looked up just a handful of things because I basically got into town today and I'm making this video and I got edited and uploaded within this day, right? So please, whatever I say, whatever I reply, you know I will try to provide references in the description of this video, but please check into it yourself because I haven't gone through multiple filtering cycles that I usually try to go through when I make videos and I write articles and stuff like this, okay? So there's two questions being asked. The first one is, are comic books too Americanized and patriotic? So that's one of the first questions, the first choice and if you've been following my comic book videos you'll know I've talked a little bit about this, I've thrown some hints and stuff like this and I would definitely like to delve deep into this, but I think it's not something that I want to go into right now and I know there's a lot of references that I would like to pull out and there's a time restraint, so I might address this later sometime for the comic book videos, but what I want to do is address the second one. The second question being this, the second story is about Netflix TV shows and blockbuster movies and how they are launching comic books back into the limonite and making them popular again, okay? So that's what I like to address right now and I've been watching, you know, comic book programs are coming on, series are coming on, watching, you know, starting to watch all of them, there's a lot that I've stopped watching, but the Netflix series definitely, I'm watching all of them, Daredevil was amazing, Daredevil 2 was amazing, Punisher was absolutely brilliant, the appearance of Punisher and how they portrayed him in Arrow was just totally psyched about the Punisher series coming out for sure, right? I love how Jones was fantastic, Luke Cage was pretty good, I like that, I love the music button and I can see what they were trying to do with the series, so hugely appreciated for the angle that they took it in and Iron Fist, it was good, the start off fantastic, start off with a bang and I think they were experimenting and whatnot, as far as I'm concerned it was a lesser of the four series, one of the reasons being is there was too many cuts during the fight scenes and stuff like this and there's discrepancies, it wasn't as filtered through as Daredevil, as edited, you know, taken out stuff that didn't make sense, that shouldn't have been there, you saw that in Luke Cage a little bit as well, right? But I loved all of them, will continue watching all of them, that's my two cents. As for the question regarding where the question is leading, for sure TV programs, TV shows have brought on comic books to a level where they're accessible to a lot of mainstream audiences, okay, and they've had a lot to do with, you know, comic books sales starting to pick up in the last few years, especially the movies when they start coming out with Iron Man and whatnot, right? I think they were still filtered, I think the series are brilliant, they portrayed comic books the monthlies much better than the movies do, 100%, right? But we've been seeing, you know, because of media, TV shows, movies and stuff like this, we've been seeing sales of comic books pick up, pick up, pick up, pick up. For the last, you know, it's been on a serious nice growth rate, I guess you want to call it for the last few years, right? So they've had a lot to do with it, but I don't think they're the main cause, I don't think they're the main cause of comic books becoming popular. They have a large part to play in it, but I'm sort of, it could address something regarding my opinion as to why comic books sales are picking up and a lot of people are coming back into comic books and I've been watching my comic book videos, you'll know, I've talked about this a fair bit and again throwing little hints here and there and whatnot, but for me, I think the reason I believe that comic book sales have kicked up huge and it's not, you know, I'm not necessarily talking about the boost, the bump, I guess, the movie bumps and the TV show bumps that the industry is seeing with the pickup of people reading comic books, but because I don't think those, the bumps, stay up on that level. For sure they introduce a certain number of people and drop off and there's a whole bunch of people still, you know, coming on in the industry and reading them, right?  But I think what's sustaining it, what's giving it the permanent growth that we're seeing right now where people are picking up comic books, reading them and going, wow, right? As long as they can find their way around the comic book store, right? It's very daunting, very difficult for someone without any knowledge to walk into a comic book store and go to the racks, the new release racks and pick up a comic book and read it.  A lot of people are doing trades, bookstores are picking, doing trades now and stuff like this, right? But I think what's sustaining people jumping on and not leaving, right? And bringing the collectors and whatnot, right? I think the main reason for that is, is because of the demise of the censorship that was happening in the industry through the comic code, okay?  It's basically something that was introduced that came into effect in 19, the Golden Age of Comics, towards the end of Golden Age of Comics in early 1950s where a book was written by a psychologist or psychiatrist or whoever it was, right? I forget his name and I've looked it up multiple times, I guess his name, I got it here, but it's Frederick Welheim and the book was called Seduction of the Innocence, okay? And he put out that book saying that comic books were polluting children's minds, right? And basically what ended up happening was, you know, there was hearings through the government and the government was threatening to step in and the industry itself, what they did was they set up a little committee, and a very little committee of like-minded people that were, that was basically an echo chamber, right? That started censoring comic books for certain things, okay? And what basically that happened, what the end result of that was, was a lot of discourse, a lot of conversation, a lot of creative outlet for artists and stuff like this was destroyed, was taken away. There were companies that went bankrupt because of this, right? And the comic codes, I'm going to delve a little bit into this, okay? I'm going to give you the reason why I think this is the case, that the main reason that we're seeing, you know, basically a comic book industry is being pulled out of its death really, because it had gone down to a level where, you know, there was a huge bump in the 90s where there was a huge bubble occurring and the mainstream media got involved and they hyped it up to a level where the whole thing completely collapsed and slowly it was trickling down to becoming an extremely, extremely niche little market where it would basically disappear within a decade or two, right? But now it's getting a boost where people see the future in comic books. It might not be exactly the form that it's in right now, but it's going to be brilliant, whatever it is, and this form will still be around 50 years from now. I know there's a lot of talk about, you know, comic book collecting is staying, is it going, stuff like that. Comic book collecting is not going to go away. It's just not, okay? It is a medium, it is a form of art, and as far as I know, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I know, there is no form of art that has ever disappeared, right? I can't think of any records. People used to say this about records, right? Records will disappear. Companies that are printing records are popping up all over the place and they're printing records for collectors, for aficionados, for music lovers because records provide you a certain sound that you cannot get off an mp3 or a wave file, right? Just like live concerts provide you a sound that you cannot get through anything else, right? Comic books provide you a certain form of art form, a certain form of information, a certain form of community, of sharing, of perspective that you cannot get in any other form, okay? So they're not going to go away, but the reason that we're seeing the boost, right? So I'm going off on a lot of tangents right now, right? But let me read you the question again, and the question is this. The second story is about Netflix TV shows and Blackbuster movies and how they are launching comic books back into the limelight and making them popular again. So for sure, the movies, the TV shows, have a pretty large role to play in bringing people, introducing people to comic books. By my opinion, it's the demise of the comic code authority, the demise of censorship, which is really giving comic books a boost, a new life, because we're at a time right now, we're in a renaissance of comics, we're in the second golden age of comics. And as far as the comic code goes, it came into effect in 1954, and it lasted for decades to a level where in the early 2000s, so in 2001, Marvel Comics decided not to follow the comic code, right? Not to submit to censorship, right? They still had their internal censorship, for sure, right? Because of the large company, but they did not submit to a secondary set of filters coming in where they couldn't share certain amount of information. And in 2010, Bungo Comics decided not to follow the comic code, and it was only in 2011 where DC Comics pulled out, right? Which is absolutely insane. So we're in 2017 right now, and the comic code came into effect in 1954, and it was just in 2011 that DC Comics decided not to submit to a secondary censorship filter, and it was 2001 for Marvel Comics. So that's, you know, 1954, 1956, 57, 58, 59, I'm sorry, 1954, 1964, 74, 84, 94, 2004, 50 years, right? 50 plus years for DC Comics and almost 50 years for Marvel Comics. They submitted the censorship. And if you want to know how hardcore the censorship was, then that was one of the main reasons. I mean, we had booths where they were selling comic books, you know, we could go really deep into this and we might analyze this later looking at numbers. But there was different reasons for different, you know, different times where comic books were getting huge boosts, right? But with the age of technology, right, with the age of the internet, if the comic book was still in effect, we would have seen the complete collapse of comic books, right? And for those of you who want to have an idea of how hardcore the censorship was, right, you know, I'll provide links. This is the comics code thing, and you can go to, I printed this thing up, there's a few pages, the comic code, Code of the Comics Magazine Association of America, Inc., adopted October 26, 1954, right? So these are some of the things that were prohibited, censored, right? There's a whole list of stuff, but no comic magazine should use the words horror or terror in its titles. Scenes dealing with or instruments associated with walking dead, torture, vampires and vampirism, ghouls, cannibalism, and wolfism are prohibited, right? Crime shall never be presented in such a way as to create sympathy for the criminal to promote distrust of the forces of law and justice or to inspire others, right? Others with a desire to imitate criminals. Scenes of excessive violence and nudity, nudity in any form is prohibited as is incident or undo exposure. There's stuff about marriage here where you can't depict marriage and insanity, insanity, right? And again, if you've seen some of my videos, some of the readings and stuff like this, I, you know, the last video we did, one of the last videos we did, I think the second last one, about comic books where I showed you my savage sort of Conan magazines, right? We're looking at the covers, and at the same time we talked about Conan the Barbarian, which was in comic book format, so it had to abide by the comic code. And we talked about savage sort of Conan, take a look at the covers. And because it was in magazine format, large format, it didn't have to abide by the comic code. And while we're looking at the covers of savage sort of Conan, I was reading you a couple of essays by Roy Thomas, the person that was instrumental in bringing savage sort of Conan, the rights to savage sort of Conan, two Marvel comics that they could publish up, right? And Conan the Barbarian in comic book format is brilliant, of course, right? Fantastic with Barry Windsor-Smith art. But when you read that and then you read savage sort of Conan, it's got a different feel, because the savage sort of Conan is more true. It's not censored as much anyway, that the only censors are really through Marvel comics, it's not through a secondary censor that follows such insane things as criminals should not not be presented, so as to be rendered glamorous or to occupy a position which creates a desire for emulation, right? That was part of the comic code. And what we did when we're looking at that video, we looked at the savage sort of Conan and we read Roy Thomas' first essay about how Marvel comics was able to acquire the rights to Conan, right? To print the comic books. And the second essay, which was extremely crucial, was how Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor-Smith were maneuvering themselves around the censorship that the comic book code was forcing on them, right? They were self-censoring and trying to slip in every little thing now and then, right? And while we were reading that, we found out that they couldn't show nudity, right? They couldn't show blood, right? We're talking savage sort of Conan, right? Barbarians, sword and sorcery. And one of the things which I found incredible which cracked me up, which I really intended to, that's one of the things I really tried to do with that video showing you the covers of savage sort of Conan. One of the things that you couldn't do according to the comic code, and I don't know if they showed us in any comic book, maybe they were able to slip some through the comic book, through the censors over the five decades, 50 years or so, right? But you were not allowed to show decapitation, right? We're talking sword and sorcery. One of the ways you can kill certain types of creatures of the night is to decapitate them, right? So you couldn't show decapitation on the covers of savage sort of Conan. We had at least two covers where Conan is holding heads of his foes, right? And that was incredible to me, right? And you have to keep in mind that the industry, the comic book industry is one of the most amazing mediums, artistically, politically, economically, just one of the most amazing genres to be in and to explore and to read this history if you want to get an idea of what was happening through society, right? As far as I know from everyone that I've talked to, I don't know one person I've never come across anyone that has been a comic book aficionado, comic book owner, an artist, a creator, a writer that agreed with the censorship, with the comics code. So for 50 plus years, this comics goes, this outside body that controlled the flow of information, right? To dictate what people were exposed to and any publisher that didn't abide by the comic code was extremely on the ground. They had minimal distribution because a lot of big industries, a lot of big corporations would not carry the comic books, right? In their stores, so they could sell them, right? So these gatekeepers, which were the censors, were only one such gatekeepers. From the comics, the people created the comics, the people, the artists sharing their stories, to the people consuming the comic books, there were multiple filters put in place. The censorship, the comic code was one. The distributors were another, right? And there used to be a lot more distributors now, we're down to sort of a monopoly with Diamond Comics that there was the distributors wars happening in the early 1990s and, you know, there was about, you know, two main distributors and there was like maybe, you know, 10, 10 to 15 secondary distributors, but when the distributor wars happened, they all folded and we're basically down to one distributor Diamond Comics and there is a couple of, there's another couple other people dabbing their toes into the field, right? Hopefully we'll get a little bit of competition. So there won't be only one gatekeeper as far as distributors concerned, right? Maybe the other distributors will not act as such huge gatekeepers as Diamond does, right? So we had, you know, for a number of years, we've had the comic book censorship, right? We've had the distributors acting as the gatekeepers. We've had some publishers censoring their own material and understandable, you know? The publisher has 100% right to dictate what their product is, right? You know, some people are more adult oriented, some people are more kid oriented, right? More G rated oriented and those are amazing comic books as well, right? I've loved many of them. Some of the greatest comic books ever written were geared towards G rated, right? And some of the greatest comic books ever written were R rated, right? And, you know, other types of gatekeepers were the comic books owners themselves, right? One of the books that we read during the comic book reading sessions was logo number one, the first African-American comic book series with this monthly title that came out. And unfortunately it only lasted two issues because of censorship, right? Because comic book stores, and this was a comic, we talk a little bit about this when we're doing the reading because, you know, Dell Comics released this comic book about a, it was a Western about a black African-American cowboy that, you know, just gets, he's at the wrong place at the wrong time and becomes a fugitive and becomes a hero and stuff like this.  That comic is absolutely brilliant. One of the panels that we read, you know, I printed it and I was like, it seems very, but it's this one here, right? This one right here where, you know, you see cowboys on top of a bull that they've, you know, from their, I guess, I don't know if you called her or not, but the cattle that they have and the comment that's being said is, easy there fella, we're all branded one way or another, right? And the image in the background is black and there's a lot of silhouettes in this comic and it's a brilliant comic book, right? But what happened when this comic came out? A lot of stores decided not to carry it, right? And this was in the 1960s, right? They didn't like the idea of a black hero in a comic book. So what they did, they packaged it all up, sent it to Dell Comics. Dell Comics printed the second issue and the same thing happened. And no publisher can have one, you know, majority of the books coming out being sent back to them, right? And I read somewhere that only 15,000 copies of this ever made it onto the stands, right? Or were printed or were accessible to people, right? So, you know, that was another form of gatekeepers. So to answer the question, let me read this question again, because I am going off on tangents, but it's pretty important to appreciate how powerful censorship is and what the end result is, what comes about when censorship is removed from society, we're able to express ourselves freely, right? Is we get a renaissance, we get something incredible happening, right? So the question that I'm sort of trying to answer right now in a long-winded kind of way is Netflix shows and blockbuster movies is regarding how the Netflix shows and blockbuster movies are relaunching comic books into the limelight and making them popular again. And again, my reply would be they have a part to play in it, but I think the major part that the major reason for this is, because I don't think that's the cause and effect, it's just the resurgence of comic books, the love of comic books, of collecting, the increase in the number of comics being sold, the print runs and stuff like this. I don't think it's directly related or only related to the movies. I think in large part, in much larger part, is related to gatekeepers being eliminated from censorship being removed from creators, from artists producing their work, to people aficionados, me and you reading their works, there are less people that have a say in what's published. And I think that's what we're seeing right now. And this isn't only in the comic book realm. Let me give you one more example, but the absurdity of the censorship, and we must appreciate how absurd this was, the absurdity of the censorship went to the level where certain words could not be used. One of them was wolf, wolfmen, werewolves and stuff like this. And there's a story here about DC Comics where they ran into trouble with the comic code. And I'm just going to read you this little write up. And this is on Wiki as well. I'm just going to read you this little write up just to give you an idea how absurd the censorship was, how complete it was. And anything with that type of censorship is doomed to fail, doomed to fail. But as soon as those barriers are removed, you will see people light up again. You will see a resurgence, and that's I think what we're seeing happen. So this is how absurd the level of censorship was. Writer Marv Wolfman, Wolfman's name was briefly a point of contention between DC Comics and the CCA, the Comics Code Authority, CCA. In the supernatural mystery anthology House of Secrets 83, January 1970, the book's host introduces the story of the stuff that dreams are made of as one told to him by a wandering wolfman. So this is a certain way to create the publishers trying to maneuver themselves around the censorship. So January 1970, the book's host introduces the story, the stuff that dreams are made of, as one told to him by a wandering wolfman. All capitals, comics, lettering, made no distinction between wolfman and wolfman, capital letter with W. The CCA rejected the story and flagged the wolfman reference as a violation. Fellow writer Gary Conway explained to the CCA to the Comics Code Authority that the story's author was in fact named Wolfman, that's his last name, Marv Wolfman was one of the greatest creators in comic books, and asked whether it would still be in violation if they were clearly stated. The CCA agreed that it would not be as long as Wolfman received the writer's credit on the first page of the story. This led to DC beginning to credit creators in its supernatural mystery anthologies. So the censorship was so absolute that DC Comics had to explain that the writer's name was Wolfman, right?  That's how the saying goes, power only wants power, or absolute power corrupts. And this is just taking a little tangents, but this is one of the reasons. One of the authors that I've read a lot of essays of, and one of the authors that I've watched a lot of lectures, one of philosophers, one of the greatest philosophers as far as I'm concerned of the 20th century was Robert Anton Wilson. And censorship, and this type of censorship has not only been prevalent in comic books, it's prevalent within our society right now. Gatekeepers try to maintain their power, always, or increase it. They seldom ever give up power, unless they're forced to give up power, which is one of the reasons where in the age of technology right now, technology has a lot to do with comic books, getting resurgence as well in popularity from fan-made shorts to people creating their own comics, sharing web comics, and talking about comics the way I'm doing right now is sharing their love of comics. That has a lot to do with it as well. But one of the reasons that censorship is so, so destructive, and so powerful to those who are the gatekeepers, and one of the places we're seeing this, going off the tangent, one of the places we're seeing this is through the internet, where we're seeing right now a lot of governments, corporations passing laws or lobbying governments or bribing governments to pass laws, to give them power to censor the internet because they are losing power. Just on every level, censorship has been prevalent within our society, comic books was just one of the first places where in this modern age of technology, civilization, we've seen censorship, it's been, we've seen it hit through music, we've seen it hit through movies of course, TV programs, we've seen it appearing in art, in every aspect of our lives there's been huge, huge discussion and debate on censorship. And I'd like to read you a sort of a comment that Robert Anton Wilson made regarding censorship, and that's my take on this as well. Okay, that right now we're in the in a renaissance period, we're seeing another golden age, we're seeing a resurgence of art, of free speech, of a freedom of expression popping up, where certain powers are trying to make sure that that doesn't become the norm, right, they're trying to prevent that. For us comic book lovers, creators, aficionados, for 50 years we're under the boot, as I guess Orwell put it, right, of authority, of censorship, we're just coming out of that. So what we're seeing right now, one of the main, as far as I'm concerned, the main reason that we're seeing a resurgence in the love of comics and appreciation of comics and on the investment aspect of it, the price is kicking up huge in comic books, right, is because the demise of censorship, right. And Robert Anton Wilson had something to say about this, not just about comic books, but about our society in general. And his comment was this, and he was specifically talking about expansion of consciousness, right, imagination. And I'm going to read you, I'm not going to read you the whole paragraph, because it might not resonate, might not make sense. But it's a piece taken from Timothy Leary's Eight Circuits of Consciousness, from Robert Anton Wilson's Cosmic Trigger, Final Secret of the Illuminati, right. So this is a piece from Robert Anton Wilson's Cosmic Trigger, Final Secrets of the Illuminati, right. And he's making comments regarding Timothy Leary's Eight Circuit of Consciousness. And Robert Anton Wilson came up with his own, I guess exercises, his own perspective on that as well. And a lot of other people have, will have as well, right. So there's just one perspective. But this little quote regards the censorship. And to answer the question, again, let me read you the question, those that I'm trying to provide my perspective on along with the perspective on must be read. And I think at some point maybe I'll make a little video of reading you all of the comic code of 1954. Okay, so let me read you this, the question that was sent my way. The second story is about Netflix's TV shows and blockbuster movies, and how they are launching comic books back into the limelight and making them popular. Again, my reply, right. My take is that just like Deadpool is, you know, has basically become the largest grossing R rated movie, just like the Punisher TV program is going to be R rated or whatever the rating is for the Netflix users, right. Just like Wolverine, the last old man Logan was R rated, and they're extremely popular. And they will continue to be and we will continue to see more mature stories coming on to the scene. May they be comic books, may they be books like The Walking Dead, not abiding by the comic code. I mean, I wonder the creators of The Walking Dead, one of the reasons they picked the title of The Walking Dead was because the comic code authority had banned The Walking Dead, right, or Walking Dead, right. So my take is the main reason that we're seeing a resurgence in comic book is because of the demise of censorship within the comic book medium, right. And artists and creators are able to share things that were prohibited before in this medium, in this medium that basically activates our left and right brain at the same time when we're looking at images and reading texts, right. Very few mediums will do that if any, right. So we're seeing the main cause is because of the demise of censorship and Robert Anton Wilson had something to say about this, right. And maybe at some point we'll read the comic book codes. But here's what Robert Anton Wilson said in Cosmic Trigger, Final Secret of the Illuminati. And let's read the whole paragraph. The suppression of scientific research in this area has had the unfortunate result of turning the outlaw drug culture back towards Fifth Circuit hedonics and pre-scientific tunnel realities, the occult rival, soapalism, pop orientalism. Without scientific discipline and mythology, methodology, few can successfully decode the often frightening but philosophically crucial Six-Circuit metaprogramming signals. And this is the relevant quote. Such scientists as do continue to study the subject, they're not published the results which are illegal and record ever wider tunnel realities only in private conversations like the scholars of the Inquisition era. Voltaire announced the age of reason two centuries too soon. We are still in the dark ages. As far as comic books are concerned, the reason we're seeing a resurgence in popularity is because we're coming out of the dark ages. That's it for now. I'll see you guys in the next video.


1. Parameterized quantum circuits are a promising hybrid classical quantum approach, but rigorous results on their effective capabilities are rare. 2. In this study, the authors explore the feasibility of training depending on the type of cost functions. 3. They show that local cost functions are less prone to the baron plateau problem.


This is just an anarchistic Q&A. I'm going to just be the moderator and pick on people and we have a mic over here. So if you want to ask a question, raise your hand and we'll give you. I'll just pass this around. I don't want responsibility. He'll pass it around.  Okay. So you ask any questions to any of the today's speakers? Yes, sir. You had your hand up first. I have a question for Dr. Klein. I was wondering with big tech, do you think there's an exact point where we can draw the line with data collection? I know you talked about collecting basic data, things that you're interested in for advertisers to target you and then give you those specified advertisements. Where do you draw the line with that? Also, if we continue in this path in the future, we've seen big tech firms and companies like MySpace going out of business, but if we continue in this way in the mixed market the US has, do you think that big tech could even grow dangerous in the future? Well, on the first question, I'm not sure I completely understand what you're getting at, but I think all of these data collection issues are really contractual questions. When you sign up for the service, there's typically some user agreement in which some data disclosure policies are provided. In principle, if those were all considered enforceable contracts and the courts have ruled in many cases that they're not enforceable contracts, then the issue of what information can be collected by the platform and how that information can be used would be determined by that contract. There was a case, for example, it was last year or two years ago where some Facebook data was sold to a third party in violation of the user agreement. If there are lots of cases where various retail stores, it happened to Target here a few years ago, it's happened to several retailers, hackers broke in and got people's credit card information or something like that. If a store voluntarily gave up personal information that I have not agreed to disclose, then that would potentially be a breach of contract, not necessarily a criminal act, but I would have a civil case for breach of contract. What makes it complicated is that courts have ruled in some cases that those click-through licenses, which you don't read, you want to install the thing or create an account, click, click, click, click, click, click. Now I'm done, you just click that you consented to this, you consented to that. Are those considered enforceable agreements or not? I mean, that's sort of a question that in a free market, a libertarian legal system would have to work out. So I mean, to me, it's not like a volume issue. Well, if they collect only a certain amount of data, it falls under one set of rules, but if they collect a larger quantity of data, it's different. To me, it's sort of the same thing that the way we want that system to work is that the contract governs what can be collected and how it can be used.  I mean, can I imagine a world in which, even in the absence of government intervention, we care so much about access to some gadget. Somebody invents a flying car or a teleportation device, but to use it, you have to sign a restrictive contract that they can take your kids when they turn 18. Some people might do that, and then later sort of wish they hadn't. One thing that's interesting, and I talked about this last year when I did a talk specifically on privacy, there are a lot of privacy enhancing alternatives. Like, you can use DuckDuckGo and a non-Google in a browser other than Chrome, and less of your information will be collected than if you use Chrome and Google Search, but only a tiny, tiny percentage of people are willing to do that. You can encrypt all your emails, you can encrypt all of your texts and so forth, but most people, when they evaluate that trade-off, it's not worth it. I mean, most people, they've revealed through their actions that they're not willing to sacrifice a little bit of convenience or presumed accuracy in search results to have more privacy, so it wouldn't shock me if we sort of give up more of what many of us would consider to be our sort of rights to privacy and so forth, because that's a price we're willing to pay to get other benefits of technology, but we just have to wait and see how this plays out in the market. Let's go in the back of the room, the way in the back. We tend to ignore the people in the back, us old guys, because we can't see that far. This is for... Like, it just barely may come out, though. This is for you, Dr. DeLorenzo, and also anybody on the panel who has an idea on this. I was talking to a couple of my colleagues yesterday about my interest in writing a paper that I was gonna title in Reluctant Defense of Castle Culture and the Platforming, and we got into this big argument about, is it right for Twitter to de-platform people? Is it right for schools to de-platform people? And I came up and I said, if students choose not to want somebody to talk to them, they have the right to do that. It's their graduation. It doesn't matter what the idea is. And my question basically is, is where we talk about... My argument was, if you do not valid the non-aggression principle, you have the right to not talk to people or not want people to talk to you. Is that, do we, because the other alternative to me seems to be laws, because there's some bad behaviors that we don't like or that we think are not okay in society and we usually either ostracize people or talk to people in our own personal lives to basically punish those ideas or bad behaviors that would be completely ridiculous and probably immoral if we say, go to prison for saying this. Isn't that a less cost, a more effective way of punishing ideas of people we don't like? I wanna get your thoughts on that because you were talking about how Twitter could stop people from their platform and that might not be a bad thing. I just wanted to get your thoughts on, if you don't break the non-aggression principle, don't you have the right to de-platform people if you wanted to? What is wrong with that, basically? Well, he's asking me, well, if you believe that freedom of association is a good thing, then freedom of disassociation is just as good. We don't have forced association, although the government tries to force us to associate with people we may not wanna associate with and vice versa, tries to disassociate with us with people who believe in ideas like I do, for example. And the problem I have with the de-platforming, so-called, is that I think Facebook and some of these out in Google are just too much in bed with the NSA and the CIA and the whole spying apparatus of the government and are doing their spying for them. I think a lot of what they do is they, the government knows it's unconstitutional, they're breaking the First Amendment, what they're doing, but then they make the argument that, well, it's not the government that is doing this, it's a private company, it's Google, but they work hand in hand with Google. I mean, it's been all over the news that the Biden administration and Facebook have their heads together trying to determine who to censor next. And so you have sort of these de facto fascist organizations like Google and Facebook who are doing the government's dirty work for them. And so that's just the way I see it as of right now. And I don't consider them to be purely private organizations anymore once they're in the same room. Years ago, I did a consulting project for Coca-Cola and when I had a meeting with some of the Coca-Cola executives, they had, there were people from Pepsi in the same room and we all had to sign this legal document saying that we did not conspire to fix prices just because Coca-Cola and Pepsi executives happened to be in the same room. But now you have the White House people and Facebook in the same room conspiring against all the rest of society. And there's no lawyer in there saying, oh, you better sign this, Joe Biden, to make sure you're on the up and up and you're not breaking the First Amendment here. And so they're lawless. They can do whatever they want in that situation. And that's the way I see it. I don't know if Peter wants to add. This is Peter's area. Just a brief comment. I mean, I agree with what Thomas said, but, damn, I think your question, when people use the phrase canceled culture, sometimes they mean sort of the legal and political aspects. Sometimes they mean the social, cultural, communitarian aspects. I mean, I would say that, I don't wanna be the kind of person who, if somebody hurts my feelings or rubs me the wrong way or says something I disagree with, I will shun them forever. Never have another conversation with them. I mean, I wouldn't be able to talk to any of these guys if that were the case, but independent of the legal and political issues, is it a good thing that we live in a society in which there's sort of bullying or calling people out, not exercising any forgiveness or forcing people to make these ritual apologies for this horrible thing I said. I don't think that's good from a social and cultural point of view, independent of the legal issues. How about you, right there, yeah. My question is for Dr. Gordon and it is about Hans-Hurman Hoppe's view. I can't remember if you specifically went in on it in your lecture, but it's about his view on monarchy and why it is preferable to democracy, even though it's not the preferable option. And he mentions that most of it comes from the fact that the monarch owns the country, so he has a lower time preference than other leaders and is encouraged to not pillage all the country's resources in a small amount of time because he can pass on leadership to his children. Would this kind of philosophy also apply to an oligarchy that also came off the same principles of that you kind of divide up the country among a group of leaders who also own that specific part of the country and then also pass it on to their children? Would this same concept apply or is there something specifically about there being one leader of a nation that is making this principle hold out? Yes, I think that's a very good question you ask. It would sound to me like the argument would apply to an oligarchy, but I should say in the way I presented the argument, at least I hope I presented it, I didn't say that the monarch hasn't advantage because he owns the country. That is something Hans does suggest, but I gave the argument without that because I just mentioned that the monarch expects to be around for quite some time and the reason I did that is one could possibly object, I don't say, try to assess the validity of the subject, one could say, well, the monarch owns only his own estate, not the whole country. So I wanted to avoid that point so that was why I didn't state the argument that way, but I think your point about oligarchy is a good one and it would apply to my version of the argument also. By the way, guys, hold the mic closer to your face because, David, you went farther and farther away as you were talking. Oh, well, that's why that was the better part of it. You had a multiple answer. They were all sitting on the edges of their seats at the end of your comments. Another question, yes, right here. This is a question for Dr. DiLorenzo. So you talked about numerous riots and protests led by college students against visiting speakers whom they happened to disagree with. It's kind of a simple question, but how would you suggest that we talk to people who refuse to listen to any argument opposing socialism and just seem to prefer violence over discussion? How do you talk to people who? Who prefer violence in no context? Oh, violence. You call the cops, I guess, on them. If they're perpetrating violence, that's what they would do. I gave a talk a couple of years ago now at a large community college in North Carolina and it was on capitalism and I get there and some of the left-wing faculty knew that I was coming and so they started raising all kind of trouble online and I get there and my host who invited me said that she had to have like three or four extra campus cops around, not that they feared that I would, well, what am I gonna do? But that's the way that they were. And so I don't know, these people are not worth dealing with.  So my advice is forget about it as far as those are concerned or work one-on-one. You know, I was telling some of the some people today that years ago undergraduate economic students of mine would tell me things like, you know, we totally understand the argument against the minimum wage laws and things like this but then when we go back to the dorm, our students give us, our classmates give us a hard time. You know, the sociology major or the education major in the same dorm because they're sort of brainwashed in this idea that poor people have a problem, government is the solution and they don't wanna hear it. They don't wanna, so they were fearful that they would have a bad social life on campus if they espoused economic sanity or they're supposed to be economic stupidity is the sort of the requisite thing to have a good social life on the campus, at least where I worked at the time. And so they were hesitant to do what you're suggesting and try to, you know, have a civilized discussion but you have to pick your targets. People who you think would be a little more reasonable but the ones who would, you know, are borderline joining Antifa and setting fires to buildings. Just call the cops on them. I wouldn't waste my time on them. You wanna devote your time to where you think you could have some impact on people and that's when you have to use your imagination on how to do it. Our friend Tom Woods is the real genius at that in sort of persuasive language and we all have to work on that. When I was your age, I was taking economics, I ran across The Freeman, the magazine, The Freeman in a classroom when I was a freshman in college and I started reading some of the great libertarian writers, including Mises who had written in there. And I started working as a freshman on persuasive writing. I started trying to imitate their methods and their techniques of explaining economic ideas to the general audience. And so that's something that all of you can work on and get better at and as you go through your college years. One, when you're talking about violence and speech, it reminded me of a story about the great Irish playwright, George Bernard Shaw. He once started a lecture by saying, gentlemen, I'm a socialist and atheist and a vegetarian and someone yelled out three good reasons why you should be thrown out. Yeah. You know, ridicule sometimes works. How about, yes, sir, how about this man right here, make it easy on the guy passing the microphone around? Hello all, I have a question for David Gordon about the argumentation ethics. So I'm a debater, I debate a lot and one thing that I've noticed a lot in people is when they seem to be almost pretending to have a debate or pretending to have an argument. And I say pretend because so often people aren't, like they aren't arguing, they're just sort of repeating words and phrases that they've heard or they've seen on the internet or that they've heard from other people. So my question is, does owning oneself necessitate owning your own language? Well, I'm not sure I'm understanding the question I should say, I'm rather sure I'm not understanding the question. I think when we talk about own your language, I think, do you mean in the sense some people use the term own now to mean something like be responsible for or to mean sincerely or do you mean something like ownership in the sense that you're claiming that certain parts of the language belong to you. I'm taking you to mean more of the former. Sort of, I guess, what just, because I mean, if you're merely repeating these words, you're not speaking them because you understand them, you're just, it's like you've adopted somebody else's, somebody else's words.  I see, I think I understand what you mean now, unfortunately, I would say that that's not a condition for argument at all, what the person's motives are, what his thoughts about what he's saying are really not relevant to evaluating what the validity or otherwise of what he says. I remember there was a rather bad argument I've seen in print where someone has said, if someone is a liar, you can't trust what they're saying, because say they say something, I mean, even if they're making an assertion about some philosophical point, if they're known, if say they don't believe in objective truth, maybe they're lying, but that doesn't matter what, you can evaluate what they're saying independent of whether they mean it or not, maybe they're lying, they think what they're saying is false, but it could be true, doesn't, so I would say the motives are people having, whether they're intended, whether they're just repeating what other people say their sincerity really has very little to do with how correct their ideas are. Okay, we'll go back to this side, how about this gentleman right here, he had his hand up on the end there. Hi, this is for any of you, can you help me distinguish the difference between, if any, between these two scenarios? So we've talked a little about cancel culture, but I think we also agree that people vote just by making a choice to frequent one place or another, so how does any of the conversation of cancel culture, how does it affect that? So suppose you have a business owner and you make some bad statements or acts in a way you don't like and you choose to not frequent his business, how does that differ from what goes on with cancel culture which seems theoretically to be the exact same concept except that individual is marketing your views publicly to other people, so can you differentiate between those two and does anyone have a problem with cancel culture and if so, why? From that perspective. If I understand correctly, you mean if I offer some kind of digital product to you, communications platform or email service and you say things on that email service that offend me and I wanna restrict your use of my service because you've violated some social mores. I mean, is that what you're asking? Is that, you're saying would that be an example of cancel culture? For any reason really, anything that someone would do. Yeah, but again, it's a question of what does the contract say? I mean, if you've paid for a one year subscription and there's nothing in the language that restricts your ability to say X and then you say X and I cancel your subscription, then you have a potential claim against me for violating the contract. It'd be no different from a retail store if Walmart says we don't want people with bow ties to come in and they throw Sean Rittenauer out. I wouldn't call that cancel culture. I mean, that's just, like Tom said, that's just the commercial context of exercising your right to not associate with someone for any reason unless you previously agreed that you would and now you're breaking a prior agreement. I don't see any reason to object to that. Where would Sean get his bow ties if Walmart didn't sell them? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Are you gonna take that? My mother. She works at Sam's. Nobody on this side. How about Marcus had his hand up? Here you go, Marcus. Okay. I called on him because I wanted everybody to see his suit that he's wearing. He has a date tonight. He's on a trip. All right, so this question is for Dr. Lorenzo, Dr. Klein, also to an extent, Dr. Gordon, even Dr. Terrell. Okay, so Dr. Klein, you can take this as just me saying the code words, talk about section 230, but what do you think of this as like a nuclear option on cancel culture? So even if we don't say that Facebook is a public company, it certainly is a public accommodation by most measures. And from my understanding, the legal argument for the Civil Rights Act was that any public accommodation could not discriminate based on certain categories because to do so even as a private organization would compromise a 14th Amendment equal protection that was incorporated out of the federal government but to the states and therefore to any entity that contracted with the state. So couldn't we just use again as a nuclear option the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and say that any firm that plans on trafficking in human language has to adhere to the same free speech standards that the government does, that Facebook needs to give me the same free speech protections that the state does in the same way that according to one of our favorite laws, any company, for example, Walmart cannot discriminate against me from walking in the door for being black because it is a public accommodation or we can talk about section 230. Feel free to take like 15 seconds before you answer my question on the Civil Rights Act. Is that for Peter? Yeah, I mean, I'm not a constitutional lawyer but fortunately we have some in the building today who perhaps could address whether that would work. I mean, the platforms claim that they're exercising their rights to restrict access based on violations of the terms of service, the so-called community standards. I mean, what a constitutional case claiming that enforcing the community standards violates the relevant part of the Civil Rights Act. I have no idea if that would work. Well, I think the Civil Rights Act applies to discrimination on race, creed, national origin and that sort of thing, doesn't it? So I wouldn't think it would apply. You'd have to argue that the thing that they kicked you out for was a so-called protected class as interpreted by, you know, and the Supreme Court has recently expanded the definition of protected class, but, you know, libertarian would not, it's not one. No, but being a Christian is certainly a creed, right, for certain, for real. I think so, anyway. I mean, I suppose if you claim the only reason they kicked me off of Facebook is because I said, Jesus is Lord, then you might have a claim, but I don't know how many victims of cancel culture would be able to make that kind of argument. How about the lady over here that has her hand up? Well, I thank you. I greatly appreciate the opportunity to ask a question.  So I'm going to think of how to word this properly. I had it going through my head. So with censorship and government politicians, all these officials who are choosing to pursue these strategies, do you feel that there are dark triad, I guess, dimensions that are in line with this, such as narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy, or do you feel that these politicians genuinely actually have good intentions for protections of the citizens? That sounds like a De Lorenzo question to me. Perhaps it is. Do we think politicians have good intentions when they violate the First Amendment? Yeah, that or that's always the case. Well, I'd say they have totalitarian intentions in doing that. One of Judge Napolitano's speeches, he didn't coin the phrase, but he uses the phrase libido dominante, which has nothing to do with sex. It's the lust to dominate. And, you know, in every society, he has a certain number of people. Our friend Clyde Wilson calls it the Yankee problem in America. That's a Yankee to Clyde. It's a group of people who are sort of the descendants of the Puritans who believe that they were God's chosen people and have a God-given right to dominate and control everybody else, you know, at gunpoint, if necessary, as they did during the Civil War. And so, and we still have those people. Clyde says that Hillary Clinton, in his word, he said, for example, would be a museum quality specimen of such a thing, a Yankee. She, you know, born in Illinois. She went to New England and school in New England. You know, perfect definition. And I think that's what motivates people, the libido dominant, the lust to dominate other people. That's what motivated Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler and right on down the line to, you know, most members of the United States Congress today who do these things, you know, to some degree, although they're not willing to commit mass murder so far anyway, like Stalin and Hitler and the rest did. And so, that's where I see it. And as far as what goes on in universities too, you know, all universities save Grove City or government funded, and maybe Hillsdale, and I read something Hillsdale may have accepted a penny or two at some point. And so, you know, supposedly the government itself said that the bill of rights applies to the states as well as the federal government with the 14th amendment. And so they're using tax dollars to crack down on free speech, which they're not supposed to because they receive government money. And so that seems to me, I'm not a constitutional lawyer either, but it seems to me that they're just thumbing their noses at the First Amendment. All of these university presidents and administrators who do these things and allow these things to happen on their campuses. That's... Can I add something to that? I mean, there is some, you know, in terms of sort of the positive analysis of what motivates different politicians and bureaucrats. I mean, there is some literature on this. Joseph Schumpeter famously argued that you know, there's sort of the, there's kind of a selection process. So what types of people are more likely to rise through the ranks of government bureaus? What attributes are they more likely to have? And he pointed out that these are typically people who are unfamiliar with or uncomfortable with how the market works.  Hayek has a chapter, famous chapter in the road to serfdom called Why the Worst Get on Top. Or is it How the Worst Get on Top?    So I mean, we could sort of think about, rather than just speculate, we could think about, well, what is most likely to get somebody in that position and maybe try to come up with some general principles that would suggest, and I think what most of those authors suggest is that it's not, however, someone starts out, I mean, a really well-intentioned person who wants to make the world a better place just is unlikely to survive the rough and tumble of the political process, the bureaucratic process. They're not gonna rise up to the very top of that chain of command. That's why there's one and only one Ron Paul and because of what he just said. So read the chapter of the road to serfdom called Why the Worst Make it to the Top. And the next chapter or maybe two chapters after that is called The End of Truth. And that's why people like this do rise to the top. Now, Hayek wrote this book in the early 40s and it was about, it was a warning that if we keep going the way we were going in sort of more and more collectivism, this could happen. That was the 1940s, but we're there now, we're there now. So we're there now where the worst do rise to the top. He was saying, if we keep going in his direction, the worst will rise to the top, but they're all there. Just open today's newspaper and look at the mug shots, Nancy Pelosi, all these people, all the rest of them. So I think we're out of time. It's only supposed to be a half hour, right? Okay, and otherwise they're gonna have to double our pay.


Your Highness, Tamim Bin Ahmad Alatani, Emile of the State of Qatar. Your Highness, we are extremely honored to have you as our special guest for the first time at our annual meeting in Davos. Since many years, we have a strong cooperation with your country. And in 2010, I remember when we jointly hosted the Global Redesign Summit in Doha to address the aftershocks of the financial 2007-2008 crisis. Under your leadership, Your Highness, both as a crown prince and now as the Emile of Qatar, your country has become a major, major force in global affairs. Small country, big influence. Today, Qatar has established a reputation as a real partner in international peace, diplomacy, and mediation. You have expanded Qatar's ties with your neighbors, including with Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Turkey. You have successfully mediated conflicts in Africa, in the Middle East, and Asia, contributing substantially to international stability and the resolutions of conflicts. The current war in Ukraine has further highlighted the importance of Qatar, with countries in Europe and elsewhere looking to your country to meet the energy needs. Soaring oil prices boosted Middle East oil for the users, especially your country, and this at a time when Europe reduces energy imports. What has always impressed me is the forward orientation of your country and your policies, particularly also in the area of education, for example. You have now six of the best global universities in Doha, while Qatar University has established a reputation as a center of excellence. Finally, Your Highness, you played a major role in shaping Qatar's contributions to the world of sports. Qatar has started to play a leading role as a global sports destination, hosting the Grand Prix, Qatar, and of course, we all are looking forward to the World Cup, FIFA World Cup, Qatar 22. I will come back to this in the following session. Please join me all in welcoming His Highness Tamin bin Hamad Al-Tanih. Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, the current session of the World Economic Forum is of exceptional importance, for it is happening in the midst of economic challenges and geopolitical turmoil. Before we can hope for economic prosperity, we must first examine, repair, and enforce our framework for peace. And we need to send a reassuring message to people around the world, only through unity. We can overcome the conflict that divides us. I can tell you that after years of peace facilitation through mediation that we can never give up hope. We should never give up trying to bring parties together. As long as we believe our efforts could save even a single life, our attempts to mediate will be worth it. Our United efforts need to be based on principles already agreed on in the Charter of the United Nations international law and respecting each other's sovereignty. In recent decades, we have witnessed the marginalization of the role of the United Nation, the transaggression of the rule of law in international relations, and the breakdown of basic respect for one another's independence. Solving dispute through aggression is on the rise. And it has reached one of its worst peaks in the war here in Europe. We are in touch with all parties concerned in the Ukrainian crisis. And I am ready to contribute to every international and regional effort to find an immediate peaceful solution to the conflict between the Russian Federation and Ukraine. Qatar firmly rejects the aggression of the sovereignty of states and any act that would constitute a violation of international law. We stand in solidarity with the millions of innocent refugees who are victims of this European war and with the victims of all other wars taking place right now, victims of every race, nationality, and religion. I want us to help all of them. As we rightly apply laser focus to find a diplomatic solution to the Ukrainian crisis, I hope we can equally give as much attention and effort to resolving all those forgotten or ignored conflicts. They all deserve peace, security, and dignity. The most glaring example is in Palestine, which has been an open wound since the establishment of the United Nations. Those families have been occupied for decades with no relief inside. The escalation in illegal settlement aggression has been relentless. And the same goes for the continued attacks against the Palestinian people. I keep praying that the world wakes up to the injustice and violence and finally acts. Shireen Abu-Aqla, a Palestinian-American journalist, was killed two weeks ago in Palestine and then robbed of a dignified burial. Shireen was covering the suffering of the Palestinian people for decades, and our hearts are broken. Her death was just as horrific as the seven journalists killed in Ukraine since March of this year, and 18 other journalists killed in Palestine since 2000, and many others journalists killed in the line of duty in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. In the 21st century, we should not tolerate these aggressions, and we should not accept a world where governments have double standards about the value of people based on the religion, region, or race. We consider the value of each European life to be just as precious as someone from our region. Distinguished audience, as a small state, maintaining regional and international peace and security constitute a special priority for the state of Qatar. We work tirelessly to help manage, solve, mitigate conflicts, including our ongoing efforts in Afghanistan. We were honored to be able to help with the evacuation efforts in Afghanistan, and it was only possible, thanks to the years spent investing in peacekeeping, expert mediation, state-of-the-art military and special forces, search-and-rescue teams, ranked as some of the best in the world, and the countless hours of sweat, tears, from so many. All those years of investment, training, building strategic partnership paid off. At a time when we were needed to step in and rescue people, I'm so grateful for all your sacrifices. My friends, I also consider protecting the environment to be a responsibility for all of us. Qatar has placed sustainability front and center and focused our rescue resources to develop emission reduction technologies and cleaner energy. We intend to play an active role in encouraging regional and international policy development surrounding both energy and environment. We have all seen over the past months what happens when we don't work together. At this critical moment in time, we must wisely balance the need to take care of the environment and simultaneously provide energy security for the world. This will take coordination and intense collaboration between all governments, companies, stakeholders, and every one of us. Because every single one of us needs energy. And right now, almost 1 billion people are still without a reliable energy source. As one of the largest producers of liquefied natural gas in the world, Qatar invested in LNG expansion efforts for years, understanding that LNG is a critical-based load energy source needed during the transition which is already taking place. Increased energy production can provide the world with a cleaner, safer, more reliable, and flexible energy. Achieving global energy security will lead to market stability and reduce the economic effects of the current energy crisis. Ladies and gentlemen, as most of you know, for the first time in the Middle East, Qatar will be hosting the FIFA World Cup the end of this year. We are working hard, so this major sport event can allow our entire region the chance to host the world. For decades now, the Middle East has suffered from discrimination. And I have found out that such discrimination is largely based on people not knowing us, and in some cases, refusing to get to know us. Even today, there are still people who cannot accept the idea that an Arab Muslim country would host a tournament like the World Cup. These individuals, including many in positions of influence, have launched attacks at a pace never seen before when a mega-sporting event was hosted by other countries on different continent. Despite the fact that each of those countries has its own particular problem and challenges, Qatar is just like your own country, not perfect, constantly trying to improve and full of hope for a brighter future. We are so proud of the development, reform, and progress we have made. And we are grateful for the spotlight that the World Cup provided, which inspired us to make these changes at a lightening speed. I assure everyone listening that this edition of the World Cup will be a special one. We believe that sport is a tool for positive change, promote tolerance and respect, empower youth, and inspire unity. We stand by that belief. And I hope you will join us to discover the beautiful game as it has played in our country. Ladies and gentlemen, our common interest, our common responsibility, and the common destiny of all humanity required partnership so we can all live together in peace. I thank you very much. Highness, thank you very much for sharing with us your principal ideas. I would like to follow up with some questions. You recently were hosted by President Biden at the White House in January 22. And during the visit, President Biden designated Qatar as a major non-NATO ally. Some weeks later, I think you were in China. You visited President Xi. And you also discussed the Belt and Road Initiative. So my question would be, how do you balance your relationship in this conflictual world, particularly between the US on the one side and China on the other side? Well, the US is a, we have a great relationship with the US. The US is a very strategic partnership. And this designation is a recognition for the role of Qatar in the Middle East and all around the world. And after that, as you mentioned, Professor, yes, I am an IOC member of International Committee, Olympic International Committee. And I had the chance to visit Beijing for the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympic Games. And I had the chance to visit President Xi and have a meeting with him. This recognition of Qatar is because of the role, as I said, that we've been doing in the last couple of years. And peace facilitation, humanitarian aid. And also, we work very closely with our allies in America and Europe as well to counter terrorism. We have this great understanding. And as I said, we are doing a lot in peaceful facilitation. And one important role that we're doing as well, humanitarian aid, we are very proud and happy that we are helping to educate more than 12 million people around the world. This is very important. And also in our region, we are helping to create jobs by helping the youth to create their own business. We, as I said, we work very closely together with our allies to counter terrorism. Also, our duty, we are blessed with the resources. We need to also work in parallel to give the youth in our region hope by good education and create jobs. Because this is very important to prevent any, let's say, extremism or terrorism. China, we have a very good relationship with China. We have a very strong economic relationship with China. And we supply China with gas. Also, how we see the world is, we don't want to see the world as polarized between two big superpowers. This is not the interest of all of us, including many countries in the West as well. Being a peace facilitator for many decades, we believe the only way to solve all those conflicts is through dialogue. We understand there are conflicts and there are differences. But we should never give up hope. And I think the only way is for them to sit together and try and solve all those disputes. Your Highness, I will come back to this question later. But I would like to take up what you said about Qatar as a major, I think, second largest exporter of gas, just to take suffigar 77 million metric tons per year. Now, you have received quite a number of your helpings in the world in its energy transformation and reaching energy independence. You have received particularly visitors from Europe. And my question would be, to what extent actually do you feel that the gas created by your country can fill the gap which is arising in Europe? Yeah, that's the topic now that everyone is speaking about. We have to understand that this energy crisis wasn't due to the war in Europe. It was way before that. But of course, the war in Europe maybe made it more difficult. We took the risk years ago to invest in the LNG expansion, understanding that this LNG is needed for the transition period. We are exploring markets. We understand that there is a need and demand for gas. Qatar is a reliable partner. We make sure as well that we do a lot in energy and we do also a lot in environment, which is very important in our vision. So yeah, I mean, with all those expansion, we make sure that we have the state of the art technology to make sure that this progress in LNG will also reduce any issues concerning the environment. The technologies actually are very, very fascinating and interesting the way how things happen. I mean, it's a very technical issue as much as our Minister of Energy tries to explain to me, it's just so complicated. But it's very interesting how now the flame reduction is working now. We've been spending a lot of investment in that. It's just how the flame, instead of going out, we try to reduce the flame, reduce the pressure. Because of the pressure, you need to release the flame. So we are having technologies in reducing the flame, even with the new technologies on the ships as well, that we have the new ships. Instead of going out with the flame, we make sure that the gas comes back in the ship and also helps fuel the energy for the ships. So all those are new technologies. And as much as we do with the gas expansion, we make sure that it's sustainable and we protect the environment. And your important role, Your Highness, in the creation of hydrogen, which is a major subject of discussion also during this meeting. Yes, it is. I know that. Your Highness, you referred to the mediation role you have taken on. And I mean, to my mind comes particularly also how you facilitated the task. The talks between the US and the Taliban, you mentioned yourself, some of your engagements. You just visited last week, if I'm not mistaken, Iran. And you are acting as an important intermediary between actually the parties to revives the 2015 nuclear accord. Could you say some words about it? And could you also say, if you look at the global landscape and where mediation is needed, what could be your priorities at this moment? Yeah, as I mentioned, our geostrategic role in our region is for peace, facilitation, and also to supply and energy security as well. So we've been playing this role for decades now. And we understood that the best way and the only way to solve dispute and conflict is through sitting on a table and negotiation. You mentioned about Afghanistan. Yes, we've been working closely with our allies in negotiation in Afghanistan. And it paid off. It paid off. Well, we're still very far away. We still have issues and problems we understand. But maintaining this dialogue is very, very important. Iran, as I said, we're not playing an official role to mediate between the West and Iran. But Iran is our next door neighbor. We have a good understanding and a good relationship with Iran. And our role as well is to try to help and to encourage all parties to come back to this agreement. So that was my message to our Iranians that we encourage them to come back to this agreement. Your Highness, we need so much bridge building in the world that also the World Economic Forum is trying to be a bridge builder in our conflictual world. Now, can you share with me the secret to be successful in bridge building? Well, there's no secret and there's no magic. But we're grateful that people, when they come and ask us, they trust us. We have a track record of being honest and bringing people together. And this is our role. We should never give up. Believe me, many negotiations were so, so difficult. And at some point, you feel that we're not going to go forward. But we should never give up.  And we play this role and we continue playing this role. And as I said, any contribution for peace and stability in the region and any part of the world, we will not hesitate when we're asked to do so. So it means trust, openness, that's it. Yeah, trust and persistence. Persistence, never give up. Sometimes it's very difficult. You just want to run away from it. But now you should never give up. Keep on going, keep on going. Because this line of communication is very important. To conclude our session, Your Highness, on behalf of all the participants, I want to thank you and I want to wish you to continue with your important task. I wish you courage, persistence, and success. Thank you. Thank you very much.