Welcome to this special event today, this is a Q&A committed to answering questions of criticism from opponents of objectivism or from those who have some doubts, have some disagreements. And my guest tonight is, or today for Americans, is Dr. Jaron Broek, the chairman of the board of the Einrand Institute, author, podcaster, finance guy, also entrepreneur, and I would call him also entrepreneur of an idea. And this idea is objectivism. I hope you guys are familiar with objectivism. If not, go to Einrand.org and quickly do some reading. Hello, Dr. Broek, how are you? I'm good. How about you, Tomak? I'm good. I'm good here in Poland. It's quite the weather. It's heavy. I think we're going to have some storms tonight, but I'm safe. No riots. That's good. The sun is shining in Puerto Rico. I'm in Puerto Rico. The sun is shining. I just came back from the beach. No riots, some demonstrations, but nothing too bad. And overall, a beautiful, beautiful day today. Yes, I'm a bit jealous. So guys, I have some base questions submitted to me before in some comments in various groups that I was posting this event to. So I have some questions, but I'm always welcome from you to post questions in chat, either here or on YouTube. Well, you can press raise hand. And if you're using decent person with a name, I may let you in on a voice and a camera. If people can put on their cameras, that's always nice. It's always nice to see you guys. I can put you all on one screen. You're all welcome to be seen here. We have 27 people right now on Zoom and eight on YouTube. I guess like you were not born objectivist. There was some way for you some path to get into this ideas and to agree with them. What was the biggest problem you personally faced with objectivism? The biggest problem I faced. The biggest idea on something hard, difficult for you to chew and agree with. I mean, there were a lot of things that were hard to understand, but I wouldn't say there were a problem of embracing objectivism. I, I don't know. I, to me, once I read Atlas shrugged. And so, so the biggest problem while reading Atlas shrugged was to, to embrace egoism to, to reject altruism to really internalize this idea of it was okay to live for myself. My life was the standard that was a real revolution for me, and really hard to integrate into absorb, given how it was raised given the philosophy of everybody I knew around me given the philosophy of everybody I talked to. And I'd say the things that were most difficult for me to get rid of right, particularly on the emotional level so intellectually, I understood a lot. But emotionally it took me years and years and years to get rid of those so first altruism, which is really hard to really get rid of from every system that you have. It's great because it's it's so ingrained in all of us. It's so much part of the culture and I think most of us don't even know completely and you have to be very self aware when altruism is kind of eating away at you, preventing you from being happy, preventing you from making the right decisions. So altruism is big. For me it was also nationalism, collectivism. You know, I grew up in Israel and collectivism was the thing and, and nationalism was the thing and it took me a long time to get rid of that to integrate that out of my system. And you know, as part of that, there was a period where I served in the Israeli army after I'd already become an injectivist. So I had to serve in the Israeli army while I was integrating out of believing in nationalism and collectivism and dying for your country or whatever. So it was it was particularly challenging. I think I think it took me years to get rid of the nationalism collectivism altruism. You know, those three, and, and then the challenge was just to understand the ideas to see how they integrated together to see how they connected. I studied the philosophy slowly. I mean, I know people who just they most themselves in it, and they try to eat up everything I couldn't find the books so it took me a long time to it took me a while to read and I read slowly and so for me it was a years long process. It wasn't something where I read out the shrugged and I read everything else and within six months I was completely educated and objectivism. I don't completely trust anybody who does that completely because it takes a long time to integrate these ideas, particularly when you're young.  I didn't know anything. And so I had nothing to connect the ideas to and knowledge requires massive integration and massive concretization with with concrete from reality. It requires real knowledge of the world. And again, that's another reason it took me years to really integrate the philosophy. And now right now you would say you're like 100% objectivist, like there is everything in principles that you agree with. I wouldn't say it would be it would be wrong of me to say that I understand everything 100% and I completely integrated everything 100%. There's still whole areas in the philosophy that I don't, that I'm not an expert in that I haven't completely integrated, I've integrated the principles. But do I know, do I understand everything she says in introduction to objectivist epistemology? No. Do I understand fully, sudden, you know, every time I put it this way, every time I read an essay by Iron Man, and I am blown away by how much I don't yet understand. You know, for example, last year I did a whole session on romantic manifesto at Ocon, the objectivist conference that the Iron Man Institute puts on every summer. And so I read, reread romantic manifesto. And there's so much there and it's so deep, and it's so different than anything else, you know, and she integrates philosophy, psychology, and, and of course, art, all in these essays, and now I mean there's a lot I still don't completely understand. I kind of get, I don't disagree, but I can't say yes. I really understand it. I can teach it now. That's the standard for understanding, by the way, when you can teach something, you understand it. Or when you write about something, you understand it until you teach it on or write on it. You think you understand it, but try try to write an essay on why egos is the right is the right approach to ethics, and have somebody edit it so I have somebody critique it so that it's real so it's convincing or teacher class, you know, get some friends and do a little seminar on it. And suddenly you discover that you don't quite know how to explain certain aspects of it and that's that's that's that means you don't completely understand it, or you can't give the right examples a lot of teaching, and a lot of explaining is giving examples, and you need to have examples for everything that you know. Do you.  So there's a lot I don't know yet still and there's a lot I'll never know, because I'm not that interested do I do I care that I don't know the every aspect of the epistemology. A little bit it would be nice if I knew it. Do I care enough to devote huge amounts of time to studying it. No, it's not doesn't affect my life enough. I'm an egoist every minute of my life counts. I'm owning in a focus on the thing that add value. And I know the epistemology enough so that I can live my life and do my thing and do what I do well enough so. Well, guys, I'm still waiting for questions in both chats. Thank you. You're on for this. Well, we are about to answer some criticism.  I'll try to moderate it. I'm sure during your during your, I know 30 years long career as an like objectivist intellectual 25. 25. I wasn't an intellectual before them. So 20 really formally as an objectivist intellectual, I'd say 20. I started I started late, you know, and I, you know, and I think to be an intellectual. Yeah, you know, isn't it is you have to get there right it takes a long time and, you know, not everybody who knows objectivism is automatically an intellectual. Not everybody argues objectivism is automatically until you have to know a lot. So probably 20 maybe 22 years, not not much more than that. I've been speaking about objectivism, probably the first lectures on objectivism I ever gave was 1997 or eight. So 2223 years ago. That's it. I've been studying objectivism. I read out the shrugged. Now you're going to hold them. I read out the shrugged 43 years ago. It took me 20 years before I ever gave a talk. I mean, a formal talk on on on objectivism. I know because we organize a lot of talks with you. You told me that your favorite part of the meeting is the Q&A session. Yes, you're quite like confrontal guy. You like to answer criticism. I love to watch them as well. What is the one that comes the most often the question after your talks. Well, it depends on the audience. Right. So if it's an audience, my favorite audience is an audience of virgins, which means an audience that's never heard these ideas before. Right. That's my favorite audience. And I my guess is nobody here is a virgin in that respect. And the most common question there is, you know, I've said this before many times is what about the poor? What about the poor here? What about the poor there? It's not how do I live an egoistic life? What about altruism? What about this? It's never about ethics. It's always about what about the poor? So that's the question I get the most from, I'd say, virgin audiences to quite the two. I was thinking about this before doing this because, of course, I hope most of you are from Poland. It's hard to tell. It looks like a mixed group, but quite a few of you for Polish. So I was thinking what's the most common questions I get in Poland. And I'd say in Polish, the audience's atomic is supplied to me because most audiences are being atomic audiences. I guess the two themes, right, around the questions I get in Poland. One is, but what about God? So can we be capitalist and Catholic at the same time? And the second is about why do we need governments? You know, are there anarchists? So, and that I get from all non-virgin audiences, the anarchy questions always there, libertarians everywhere, no matter where in the world. So I'd say religion in Poland, it's always religion and anarchy. And virgin audiences, it's what about the poor? What other audiences? What other questions do I get? Yeah, you know, that's what comes to mind right now. And maybe there is some that annoys you the most. No, what annoys me the most? Well... What annoys me the most? Capitalism? Yeah, anarchists annoy me the most. There's no question about that. I mean, I love some of them, you know, it's not that it's personal, but it's like, and I, again, I don't want to insult because there are probably a few anarchists there. I just find anarchy. I find anarchy such a ridiculous idea. I really do. I mean, this is not meant to insult. I find it such that it's like, really, like, you know, really, what do you see here? What is it? What intrigues you about this? And I know there's some really serious people and some really smart people and some real people I respect who are anarchists. So I'm not saying that it can be done, but to me, the immediate thing that comes to my mind is really, I mean, anyway. Would you like to take the criticism personal or about Einarant or about Einarant Institute, maybe? Or just philosophy? No, no, we can do everything. So if people want to criticize me, that's fine. Institute and everything. You know, this is an open forum, right? Go for it. Okay, my first chapter is personal. It has to be respectful. It can't be like you're a just something in a respectful way. Okay, so I will try to paraphrase it, not quote it. Sometimes I just have topics to move, so it's coming up on my head.  People say that Einarant used to be the same way. Right. So, well, does it mean more happiness in objectivism? And aren't you worried that it maybe makes a bad PR or maybe, I don't know, what do you say about this? Maybe. I mean, maybe it's bad PR. It's hard to tell. I don't think of myself as a grumpy old man. I don't consider myself old or grumpy. I think people who know me would never think of me as grumpy. I'm happy. I'm happy. I live a happy life.  And my life is in particular good. You know, so I'm not grumpy at all. The problem is that I care. I'm passionate. And I really, really care about my life, about other people's lives, about the world, about the state of the world. So I come across as grumpy because I get angry because, you know, and I think this is true of Einarant. I don't think Einarant was grumpy. But she came across as grumpy because she cared. And she cared about the world around us.  Right.  I don't think in terms of that negative. But the fact is, when I do a show, so for example, like for example, if I do a show in my podcast about art, about how wonderful art is, about how much I enjoy art, about the meaning of art and so on, like five people watch it.  And if I do a show about how evil the left is, then five thousand people watch it. Right. So many, many more people watch me when I'm grumpy. So the market signal is, you know, attack. The positives people are not interested in. You know, again, you know, I don't, the fact is that I get angry at the state of the world. I get angry at people. You asked me about questions I hate.  Because again, it's to me like Trump is so obviously bad that it upsets me when people don't see it. So I don't know. I don't know what to say about it. I'm not going to, I'm not going to not be angry and upset when I'm dealing with issues that are angry and upset. Unfortunately, those people who make that critique have probably not seen my shows where I talk about art, or I talk about sex, or I talk about love. And those shows I'm smiling and having a good time and I'm not grumpy at all. But they are oriented, people who think I'm grumpy are probably oriented towards wanting to hear politics and in politics, there's nothing good.  So, you know, so it's a consequence of caring and being emotional and being passionate, which I am. And the same applies to iron rent, because some of them could see her in TV interviews and say, come on, she's talking about happiness doesn't look like a happy person. Oh, I think she was a happy person and people who knew her. I didn't know her say she was a happy person.   Somebody's asking you questions, you have to answer them like that. Now, Iron Man was a genius, but she's still in the spotlight, having to answer questions really, really quickly. Television is more, in a sense, more intimidating, much more intimidating than a live audience.  And the questions are always hostile, right? Nobody ever asks a nice, friendly, wonderful questions, right? They're usually hostile. When she's describing a philosophy once in a while, she'll smile on camera. But I smile a lot. I don't know what people are talking about. Yes, I think Iron Man came across as grumpy because she cared and she was passionate because most of the questions related to negative stuff. I don't think it was because she in her personal life was grumpy. And I certainly, again, anybody who knows me will tell you I am the opposite of a grumpy person in personal life. I'm calm. I'm relaxed. I'm laid back. I almost never raised my voice. But on radio, I raise my voice a lot. And in a bar, I raise my voice a lot. But to my wife, or to friends, or hanging out, whatever, I'm the opposite of grumpy. Yeah, maybe we should go and do some YouTube video from Yaron's regular life. He's not grumpy. No, because I don't really care that people think I'm grumpy. I mean, I guess there's a marketing issue, but the marketing issue is solved by, I think, self-selection. I think people who watch both the positive and negative stuff that I do see both sides. And I think that the people who just focus on politics get just the politics. In politics, I'm grumpy as hell. Well, you said that being grumpy is, as I understand it, kind of your strategy to reach audience in your podcast, right? No, it's not. It's not a strategy. It's who I am when those kind of issues are raised. And I raise my voice because I'm passionate. I talk about negative things because that's what's happening in the world. If things started talking, you know, getting bad, oh, if there were people I could get excited about in the political world, then I think I would be a lot less grumpy. It's a topic. If we talk about, when I talk about egoism, I don't think I'm grumpy. Am I grumpy now? I mean, you tell me, maybe I come across as grumpier than I think I am. Well, I don't see it yet. Yeah, you've been CEO. We haven't got the analyst yet, so I haven't become grumpy yet. I'm waiting for their questions. Are you satisfied with the effectiveness of the Island Institute? Considered how long it exists and how much budget does it have? Well, satisfied is a, you know, is a loaded term. No, I'm never satisfied. I'd like us to do more. I'd like us to be more effective. I'd like to figure it out. But am I satisfied that we do everything we can do and everything we know how to do? Yes. Am I satisfied with the results? No. So, you know, every few years, every few months, we do a strategy session, try to figure out what are we doing right, what are we doing wrong, what could we do better? And we constantly try to improve and try to do better, but it's very easy for people to be on the sidelines and look at it and think they know how to change the world. And if only the Institute today or if only the Institute be usually these are things that we've done in the past and failed and people don't know, even know we've done them in the past and other times there's stuff that we thought about and decided not to do for a variety of reasons. And I am satisfied that we that the best thinkers in the world about how to spread objectives on how to get the ideas out there into the culture on the job, trying to do it. I'm not satisfied with the results, because I don't think either we have come up with the right formula, and I'm quite ready to accept the fact that we haven't. Or this is the culture and this is the best that we can do and I don't know what the actual answer to that is and that's why we keep trying, we keep moderating, we keep changing, we keep instituting new programs, we keep bringing new people on board. But the strategy, I think the strategy is the right strategy. And look, never has there been an institute, I mean literally never has they been an institute dedicated to changing the world philosophically. Never has they been an institute dedicated to changing the world philosophically. So everything we're doing we're doing for the first time. Everything we're doing in terms of impact, we don't know exactly what the impact is going to be and how successful it's going to be. We have no sense of what the timeline should be. If we were perfect, or what the timeline could be. This is the most, I think the most difficult thing in the world. I can think of a more challenging, difficult fun, but challenging and difficult thing to do than try to change the world philosophically, not politically, not scientifically, philosophically so the underlying premise of everything. And go up against religion. Go up against altruism, go up against nationalism, go up against collectivism, go up against mysticism of all kinds. I mean, nobody's ever done that ever. I mean there was no in the enlightenment. There was no Institute for the enlightenment. There was no John Locke Institute. So even the enlightenment which was less radical than we are, didn't have an Institute trying to do it. There's no Kantian Institute on the flip side. So it's hard. And I know a lot of young people think, oh, this is going to be easy. And I thought that when I was younger, and before I tried to do it. But it's much harder than you think. But you can notice, and you also mentioned that trivializing the message and making it simpler or easier to digest for regular people, for society, can be more effective. You say that you have more audience when you talk about certain topics. So some people can understand it. But is that the standard of success? That is, is the size of audience the standard of success? And for whom? Right? I don't think it is because the size of audience you need to change your culture is millions of people and many of those millions committed to the ideas. You need thousands of people fully committed to the ideas, millions of people accepting the ideas. And how do you get there? Do you get there by, you know, one person having a podcast? Do you get there by having a thousand Iran's with podcasts and public intellectuals? Do you get there by having five philosophers? Those are the kind of questions you need. And I believe you need all of them up. And until you have, just just for the sake of it, until you have 100 real objectives, philosophers who know this philosophy inside out, and you have 10,000 popularizes like me, or 1000, you're not going to be successful. So in a sense, my argument is the most important thing you can do is train intellectuals at the highest level philosophers and at the level where I present ideas, because that will pay off in 20 to 30 years won't pay off tomorrow, because they're not going to get the audience tomorrow. But in 2030 years when they're in the culture, and people are following them, that's when you get to pay off. About Island Institute relations or your relations to other groups. Why are you so, so like hateful towards libertarians when they seem to be the closest ally to your ideas. Well, I'm only hateful to some libertarians. There's some libertarians who I love, who are great voices or a support where I've worked with. I've been on panels with who I've done all kinds of things. The ones I hate tend to be the ones who tend to be the rabid anarchists, the people who believe that anarchism is a solution and as I said, in my debate with an anarchist in Poland, I consider anarchism and you can include so called anarcho capitalism in that. I believe that it's as bad as communism and fascism I believe that it is the devil it is really really really destructive to human life. I know I've just offended a bunch of you, I can see it on Sebastian's face, but that's the problem video right, but that is the reality of what I believe right I think anarchy leads to nothing and I've said this. Dozens of times, I think anarchy leads to nothing by bloodshed destruction, bloodshed and destruction. And I think ultimately it leads inevitably to authoritarianism.  I hate that set of ideas and I'm hostile to particularly intellectuals who try to spread those ideas and I've tried to interact as little as possible with them. I don't hate other libertarians I mean I've, there are many libertarians, economists, political scientists who, again, I think do good work. Some people at Cato, not everybody, some people at fee. I work with fee I've worked with Cato I've worked with, you know, lots of different organizations over the years on specific issues on on, you know, on broad issues that they were good at. But the, the idea of a big tent, I think dilutes the philosophy to the point where it's meaningless. And as I said I find anarchy offensive so I'm not interested in being in a big tent with people I find offensive. So, I think that, so I have no, I don't reject, you know, I speak to libertarian groups all the time I speak to students for liberty I speak to federalist society to Adam Smith society is all over the place. So I don't consider myself hostile to libertarianism. I consider myself hostile to an alco capitalists, and I consider myself hostile to the idea of a big tent. I think the idea of a big tent is bad. And I think the anarchism. I think that maybe those people, let me just don't understand it yet. They don't necessarily need to be evil persons right. I've never said they're evil. I think some of them are evil.  I would consider him all but no I mean particularly young people I don't consider young anarchists evil. I think when you're young and you're still trying out ideas and anarchy has a certain logic to it and a certain rationalistic, you know, logic to it beauty to it or whatever sense to it. You know, it's why I talked to people who are anarchists why I tried to, you know, convince them otherwise. But, but yes, you know, if you're an anarchist in your 40s, something's wrong. Well, but still, we don't see you cross posting much with some libertarians like I think you installed me that you wouldn't, or maybe Tom Woods told me that you would never appear on his show. No, because he's over 40 and he's an anarchist. I mean, that's it. You're over 40 and an anarchist. I'm not sitting on stage with you.  It this is not these are not neutral ideas and I said before I'm passionate.  Anarchy is a destructive ideology. I'm willing to tolerate it when you're young because when you're young, you're still trying to figure out what's true and what's not. And you experiment with all kinds of ideas and you're trying to figure it out. At some point, my intolerance disappears and it goes away and I'm not tolerant of anti life ideas from people who should know better. And Tom Woods should know better. Now, it's not just that he's an anarchist.  It's anti the civil war that is that has, you can find articles say underlying racist agendas, not the Tom Woodses, but the organization is affiliated with is that are pacifists, which I consider, you know, nutty, the pacifists, they're anti American in foreign policy, every sin in the world. They're pro Hugo Chavez. It's why I hate Ron Paul, hate Ron Paul, not just dislike Ron Paul.  So I, I will not deal with people who are over the certain age, let's say 40 who advocate ideas that I consider fundamentally anti life and who might be confused with the racism. So people like Tom Woods, Murray Watford, anybody affiliated with the Von Mises Institute. I mean, I find those ideas worse than the worst ideas of the left to logic and to some extent because these people claim to be iron rand fans they claim to be pro liberty when they're in fact opposite the anti now I become grumpy right now I'm living up to my reputation. It's, it really is. There is a fundamental philosophical, but not just philosophical in an abstraction there's a fundamental difference between the kind of libertarian, the Nelka capitalists of Tom Woods and objectivism. These are philosophies that are completely opposite. They happen to have some agreement on economics. But with all due respect, economics is not that important. And I'm an economist and it's not that important. But they have no relationship when it comes to morality. They have no relationship in epistemology. They have no relationship metaphysics, and they don't have any relationship in politics because the ones in anarchist and one one believes in actually limited government. So, and no relationship in aesthetics. So in 90% of the philosophy were opposed. And you want me to be their friend because of 10%. But I have more in common with leftists than with the Nelka capitalists, when it comes to the totality of their ideas. There is two issues with that and issues. I don't point out that don't you think that the more good would do just go and debate him. You don't have to endorse him. And the second point is that debating somebody, let me just finish, debating something is an endorsement. Debating somebody is a sanction. And there's no reason to debate him. That's the bigger problem. And again, I'm going to insult some of you, but tough. Anarcho-capitalism is not a legitimate ideology. It's not a legitimate set of ideas. It's not worthy of debate. It is a fringe, marginal, insignificant portion of the world is an archo-capitalist. And most people grow out of it relatively quickly. Right? So again, they're not that many over 40. And it's just not worth debating. I mean, I did that debate in Poland. I've done it once. Anybody can go watch it. And if you don't, you know, if that's not good enough, then, you know, you're going to have to figure it out yourself. Yaron hated this debate. He didn't want to come. I was not sure if even this is going to happen. I mean, since then, since then, Yaron mentions this debate like every time. I guess, I guess. I did hate it. And there's a sense in which I'm glad I didn't. There's a sense in which I feel a little dirty for doing it.  I mean, or he couldn't argue against it.  You can check the recording and at Obiektivism.pl. It was, I don't remember the title. I will post it in the in the event afterwards. You need to find all you do is do Yaron, Yaron Brook, Anarchy. And that's the first hit you get on YouTube. All right. And if you want to support this, not so grumpy man in headphones, you can go to Yaronbrookshow.com and check all the Here's a question Adam asked. So I might as well answer it because it's related. He says, couldn't you make the same argument against Obiektivism? Friends only small portion of people in the world are Obiektivists. True. Absolutely true. And I'm always surprised when people agree to debate an Obiektivist. And I always say when somebody says, I don't want to debate you, Yaron, I would say, I understand him completely. He's got nothing to debate. He's got nothing to gain by debating me. And I don't blame people for not debating me. I go, yeah, I mean, let's say, I don't know, Stephen Pinker. Why doesn't Stephen Pinker agree to appear on stage with me? Because he's got nothing to gain and everything to lose by it. So I am. Obiektivism is fringe and small. Absolutely. I happen to be in that fringe and small. If I'm going to go and debate, if I want to grow the movement, I'm not going to grow the movement by going to another fringe and small and even less reputable group than Obiektivists, which is then alcohol capitalist, I would much rather go to big groups where I can get lots of people like leftists and conservatives, and then I can open people in the middle, and then I can get a lot of people. But why would I go being fringe to another fringe little group and, and, and argue about minutiae at in front of, you know, 17 people who who already made up their mind. Right. I would much rather go to big audiences and big groups and debate big issues. And, and that happens to be the left and the right. One of the problems that I find with libertarians is they love to argue among themselves. Perfect audience for, for you and objectivists to go and if not Tom Woods audience of the podcast. I can tell you the audience that has been most successful, the appearance that I made that has been most successful for me by far. It's not even close. Right. In terms of subscribers followers, all either is when I first appeared on Dave Rubin. Now, in those days, Dave Rubin's audience has changed. But in those days, who is Dave Rubin's audience is left science and reason respecting. That's who the audience my ideal audience is not religious, respect right reason of science, tilting a little left. That's my best audience. And it's always been my best audience. The problem is getting them in the room, because they hear I ran and they run, or they hear capitalism and they run the beauty of somebody like Dave Rubin is you could get in and they were listening to him. And we had this great conversation, which turned I've got more people have come to me and said, Wow, I started reading I ran because of your appearance and Dave Rubin than anything else I've ever done. It's people like that. You know, I would much rather go on Dave Rubin show than Tom's would show Tom would show everybody who listens to Tom Woods, not everybody. 20% of people who listen to Tom Woods already know I exist. I probably listened to something I've already done and decided, you know, to dismiss me and go with Tom Woods. What do I gain by going Tom was versus going on, you know, if I could go on Joe Rogan show that would be great. You know, get exposed to millions of new people, people who generally thinking generally listening generally engaged in the culture. That is like a million times better than going to another libertarian event.  But again, it's this. I want virgins. I for those of you don't know what I mean by virgins people who've never been exposed to the ideas people are new people who maybe know a little bit but don't know that much. Look, I'm not a philosopher. So my job is not to take people who know something about objectives and to make them really deep intellectuals my job is to expose people who don't know much about the ideas to the ideas in a legitimate interesting legitimate interesting way. And I think that I'm not good at epistemology, as I said earlier. We have Patrick from Warsaw on on the camera with a question about some Michael Shermer critic of you or vice versa. Are you with us? Yeah, I've become a Varsovian now that's new. You are your favorite Canadian Armenian living in Warsaw. Let's do it that way. Go on with your question. Yeah, so Tom asked me to find questions. Listen, I've got a like more serious one, but I also have one that's going to piss you off.   So I came across one of your videos, you were replying to Michael Shermer's critique of a Nrand. And so you're very generous to call it what he said a critique of a Nrand. Well, hang on a second. See I feel like you straw man to him because actually just read his chapter on on. Yeah, and the chapter was responding to what he said on Dave Rubin show. Yeah, so yeah well so the point of the chapter was he first of all you mentioned many times he's he's very friendly towards the idea of objectivism he was just explaining how rational people can also turn into a cult like atmosphere, and he gives specifically the example of Nathaniel Brandon and how I ran kicked him out of the movement banished him, you know, basically had his writings scrubbed away and discouraged others from having a relationship with them so those specific points I'd like to know a little bit more about that rather than I talked about that I talked about that in my response so in the video, but but sure. I mean it's interesting. It's interesting that libertarians come up with this. Right. You know public choice theory anybody know public choice theory, you know, you can and I forget the other guy be big public choice thinkers it's it's an interesting part of economics free market economics there's a there's a lot of value I think you can get flawed in certain ways, but a lot of value you can get out of it. The two guys who invented public choice theory. Stop talking to each other at some point, refuse to afford each other the two they invented it together and then talk to each other until they died, and they hated each other and they talked all kinds of smack about each other and all this stuff. Nobody cares. Nobody says public choice is a cult, because the two founders didn't talk to each other and didn't like each other and resented one another. The same I can give you with every single intellectual movement. There is not a single intellectual movement where the leadership is not fractured is not disagreed is not fought is not X, X so called X communicated people. That's what happens when you take ideas seriously. When you take ideas seriously, and you engage in intellectual battle and intellectual when people betray what you think is the truth. You take that very, very seriously, and you don't want to have anything to do with them. And, you know, I have people in my life that I've walked away from won't do anything with them. I have people in my business life that I do that.  Should you stay tolerant of them and keep going the business with you. Of course not. You're going to walk away kick him out, never talk to them again. Now imagine you're running and you're engaged in intellectual activism.  Now, because we're intellectuals and we've got we want to change the world together, you're supposed to forgive them and be nice to them and tolerate them. Why no businessman would ever do that. Nobody in their private life would ever do that. Nathaniel Brandon.  He was pretending to be an objectivist when I really wasn't. I was pretending to agree at stuff that I didn't agree. See, he was a fraud. He committed fraud, he lied to I ran. He was, I think he set the movement back by decades I think he created an environment with an objectivism that looked cultish. He put the movement moving forward by creating a you everybody has to be the same everybody, you know, it kind of a cultish atmosphere, and she discovered this and she kicked him out. I mean, why would anybody object to that and by the way, note this, and this is again this is absurd. None of his essays were taking out of books that she wrote certain capitalism not known ideal in the virtue of selfishness. The essays by Nathaniel Brander. Nobody took those out. Nobody demanded that they be taken out. He wasn't wiped away from the objectivist history. He's right there. So, I mean, It leads to the virtue of selfishness. What's that? There is a preface. Yeah, she says this guy is not associated with me anymore. Why is that unusual and he later on does these talks on the dangers of, you know, the dangers of objectivism, the harm that you get from reading the novels. I listened to one of those talks in my early 20s and I thought it was ridiculous then. I mean, I wouldn't even day listen to it today because I think it would be absolutely absurd. But he then he becomes weird afterwards. He does all kinds of things with men's groups and all kinds of weird stuff. Why not write a little preface saying, while he was affiliate with me then, he's not affiliate with me now. That's completely logical, completely rational. It's it's every intellectual movement in human history has done the same, if not much, much more than that.  Right. I mean, in every part of human life, we separate this idea that in objectivism we should be Kumbaya. But in everybody everywhere else, it's okay to fight is bizarre to me. Right. So yeah, if it turns out that one of you steals money from me, I'm not talking to you again. And if that shocks you because we're in the same movement, then you don't understand the movement. So no, I don't think that's an honest critique. I don't think that's an intellectual critique. I don't think that's. Yes. When people who pretend to be objectivists, articulate ideas that are not consistent with objectivism, we go and say this person is no longer consistent with objectivism. If somebody affiliate with the Ironman Institute, then says, I don't agree with a mission of the Ironman Institute, I think the mission should be different. I said, great, go do it somewhere else. Right, just like in business.  If one of my partners says, I don't like the way this partnership is run. I've got great, go start your own.  There's no difference. It's curious to me how we have a different way of thinking, you know, that we automatically assume that if you stick to principles in intellectual pursuit, you're a cult. If you stick to principles in your daily life or in your business life, that's fine. No, principles are principles. I don't want to deal with people I don't like. And since I'm the boss, I get a kick out people I don't like. I mean, like, not like in a deep sense, not just that it's superficially. The allegations of the objective is movement being cultish and sectish were like they existed like 40 years ago, even even even with the road board and since then, we had this thing. Now you're getting me angry, because Rothbard is the most cultish, disgusting, offensive guy out there. I mean, Rothbard was kicked out of Cato. Cato is like the ultimate in big 10 loving everybody and they couldn't stand Rothbard.  Think about the fact that the Koch brothers who were like this with Rothbard in the 70s, you know, were like this with Rothbard post 70s. So to use Rothbard to critique Ayn Rand, Rothbard also admitted later in life that he lied about Ayn Rand, that he made stuff up about Ayn Rand in order to make his little cult much more exclusive. Right. So no, I don't, you know, you know, libertarians who are about as exclusive as anybody in terms of who they deal with. Right. You know, let me give you an example. Tom Woods is an example. You raised Tom Woods before and I hope this Q&A doesn't all turn over libertarians. The Von Mises Institute after 9-11 called me a bloodthirsty homicidal maniac. And that was some of the nicest comments about me. Right.  Now I'm supposed to ignore that. And I'm supposed to just appear in Tom Woods show as if nothing happened, as if we're good friends, as if we have a common agenda. I mean, that is bizarre. If somebody calls me a bloodthirsty maniac, unless they apologize and explain why I'm never going to talk to them again. I mean, I'm not talking about a intellectual critique of my point of view. I'm talking about name calling and a complete distortion of my point of view. I believe in, you know, I'm an egoist. I'm not going to go to my destroyers and say, sure, let's be friends because you happen to agree about 10%, you know, because I like your economics. Forget it. And the same thing about every aspect of this, if you undermine the philosophy, why do I want to be your partner? So, you know, if people think that if you stick to principles, and you require that other people affiliated with you stick to principles, if people think that's a cult, then they don't know what a cult is. They don't understand what a cult is. And they are they are delusional. You can't have a cult of independent thinkers. You can't have a cult that advocates for reason and thinking for yourself. But it's also true that every movement, including a movement of independent thinkers is a movement that has standards and has criteria and has principles. And it's not like we lynch anybody or burn them at the stake. We say, if you think this, we don't have anything to do with you.   You know, you don't agree with us. Have a spine, accept that you don't agree with us. Go do your own thing. Somebody asked me a nice question so I can stop being grumpy. There is a set of very Polish questions and actually asked by Polish audience. Okay, I'm talking to you from Poland. You can always. I thought Patrick had more questions for me. Well, I know what is his second question. I will maybe when we go with the topics I will bring him back. Why can't you accept the atom that Polish nationalism is about freedom? I guess this this somebody is arguing about this with you over some podcasts or comments. Yeah, this is this is another one of the questions I always get in Poland because the Polish, the Polish liberty movement is comprised of three types. And this overlap, right? Which is weird. Religionists, nationalists and anarchists. I'm kidding, but not the whole movement, but a big chunk of it. And we have objectives, so please go follow objectives and I will post links go on. Because nationalism and freedom, I contradiction. Particularly the kind of nationalism that I think the Polish nationalist advocate for. What is nationalism? It's an ism. It's an ism that says what it's an ism that basically means the state is above the the state is above the individual. The state is what's important. And the state in the Polish context is defined by certain borders and a certain type of person inside the borders.  People who are defined as Polish by genetics, not by citizenship. So I don't know if Patrick will ever be a real pole for the nationalists because he's Armenian from I can't remember from where. But that is anti individualism. And that is anti freedom. It places, you know, genetic lineage race as a primary is a primary of evaluating something for the purpose of politics. Polish nationalism is anti immigration. Polish nationalism is placing the state about the individual and that's the opposite of freedom freedom is about the sanctity of the individual. And that is about, you know, you could the only type of nationalism which would be legitimate is a nationalism that says we in these borders are fighting for respecting the individual and we will do whatever we can for the individual. It's like the original form of American nationalism that I talked about but almost nobody believes in that form of nationalism. The importance of almost everybody is state above the individual and state define not just in terms of borders, but in terms of genes. And that is the opposite of what it means to be an individualist it's an opposite of what it means to be poor freedom. It's the opposite of what it means to be pro liberty. If I could comment on that I also think that Polish nationalism is not about freedom this is wishful thinking. If you actually look out at the window and look check the nationalists know. However, if you're so against nationalism, why does I run Institute spend vast amounts of resources and time on writing about few million Israelis and nothing on Hong Kong, Taiwan. I don't challenge anybody to look at my podcasts and sum up the minutes that spent on Israel versus the minutes I spent on Hong Kong I'm sure I've spent more time on Hong Kong than an Israel. But the main reason is is that Israel is a bastion of freedom in an area dominated by collectivism mysticism barbarism and an area in which the West is in significant conflict. So it's not that Israel is an ideal state it's not. And in my ideal world, there is no Israel. I don't believe in Israel. If there's no anti Semitism. And we all live in a in a lezithic capitalism. I don't believe in Israel. Israel shouldn't exist. Right. In in in. So nobody at the end of an interest is Israeli nationalist. Nobody in Israel believes in Israel above all else. Israel is in the context of the battle we in the West are fighting against Islamic radicals against Islamic terrorism. Israel is important and after 9 11 after 9 11 that battle against Islam Islamism became a big part of all we did at the Institute. Now you could argue that it was we put too much emphasis on it. I know people who think we to put too little emphasis on it. I know people you know people disagree. I mean there's nothing you can do about it. But the fact is that once that became a big issue and I think 9 11 was a big issue. Israel played a big role in it because it's right smack in the middle of the Middle East. And it's the only free country in the Middle East. It's only worthwhile country in the Middle East. And it becomes it's the only US ally in the Middle East. And that's why it becomes an issue. So I don't talk about Israel much on my show. I left Israel by the way if you haven't noticed I don't live there anymore. Because I like America more than I like Israel. I'm an American patriot. I consider myself an American not an Israeli when people introduced me as an Israeli American. I don't like that because I am an American first.   Right. If you're going to attack if you're going to create a moral equivalency between Israel and its neighbors. I'm going to come after you. I would rather live in Hong Kong than in Tel Aviv. I've said that often. I've considered I mean there was a period you know I've considered I've never really considered a movie to Hong Kong. But but I love Hong Kong. Hong Kong is much more my spirit. But it's it's not you know this this notion that the Ironman Institute is obsessed with Israel. The only reason we emphasize Israel is because of the context. And you can't ignore the context. Israel as a country is no worse and no better than France, Germany, Italy, you know places in Europe. It's a mixed economy. You know it has better elements to those countries and has worse elements to those countries politically. It's very mixed. But in the context of the Middle East it's a shining beacon and in the context of the fight against terrorism. It's a shining beacon. By the way most of my talks in Israel are very critical of Israel.  It seems quite suspicious. That's because you guys have collectivistic minds. Instead of asking the question what do these Jews do right? That causes so many of them to become objectivists. You immediately assume there's some conspiracy. And look if we wanted to take over the world right now we wouldn't start with objectivism. Because as somebody said we're too small and too sidelines. You know we'd start you know we take over I don't know something else.  You know it's not like Jews are conspiring to take over objectivism. It just happens that Einrant happened to be Jewish in origin. She didn't care much about it. Nobody cares much about it and it's never discussed. What difference does it make? It's only from a nationalist collectivist perspective. Does that even matter? Nobody ever within nobody ever talks about it because nobody cares. I have a question from Betsy Speyer. She's on video. Betsy are you with us? You broke up so say that again. I broke up. Well I have a I had a question from Betsy. Betsy are you with us? You need to unmute yourself. And you can join us. Okay. I have a question about the Einrant Institute activities. I've been an ARI supporter forever since it started. And I love the essay contest which helps spread the reading of Einrant's books. I donate to the book project. And I see ARI's mission as preserving, promoting and teaching Einrant's philosophy. But I have some reservations which I'd like you to address about the independent intellectual activity, some of the essays and the op ed issues by ARI. Because they're not related to and don't promote or preserve Einrant. Let me give you an example. Recently, ARI had under a new ideal published in essays by Ilan Sornow, he's a friend of mine. And it was an excellent essay on foreign policy. But it never mentioned Einrant. It never mentioned or emphasized her ideas such as individual rights or egoism versus altruism or anything that safely objectives this in the essay. And I think that this would have been a fine essay in a foreign policy journal. But I don't think it belongs in something done by ARI or. So I get it. So this is the mission of the Einrant issue. I'm just going to read off the mission. ARI fosters a growing awareness, understanding and acceptance of Einrant's philosophy, objectivism in order to create a culture whose guiding principles of readers and rational self-interest individuals and lassofic capitalism, a culture in which individuals are free to pursue their own happiness. The key here is fosters a growing awareness, understanding and acceptance. That is our mission. That is stated on our website. That is it. Now the question is, what do you do in order to grow an awareness? And in my view, what you do to grow an awareness is not just Einrant said this, Einrant said that. You do that as well. But what you do is you cultivate good ideas based on her philosophy. And you get them out there. And look, everybody, when everybody reads Elan's essay, and I don't know which essay you're referring to, so I'm not going to get to the particulars of the essay because I can't remember it. And I a little bit doubt the way you've presented it about it, because my suspicious is it's very much based on Einrant's philosophy, even though it's not explicitly so. It's on the Einrant website. It's got Einrant there, and it's new ideal. This is what Einrant intellectuals. So the connection to Einrant is not hidden. It's like when I go out and give a talk on capitalism, and I never mentioned Einrant, but my title is that I'm giving the talk on this chairman of the Einrant issue. Everybody makes that connection. I think by one of the most important ways in which we can grow the awareness and understanding of Einrant's ideas is by becoming world-class experts in our field. Found policy for Elan. I'm over generalist energy for Alex, right? Alex Epstein. And then going out there and articulating these ideas in a coherent, interesting positive way that then people link up to Einrant's ideas. And they say, wow, the Einrant Institute or Einrant was about this philosophy that has all these interesting applications. And look, you can look at energy differently, and you can look at found policy differently, and you can look at these other things differently. And I don't think you have to mention Einrant in the essay, and I don't think you have to quote Einrant. You don't have to keep pounding individual rights every single time. That's not my issue. Okay. That's not my issue. My concern is, is that ARI's resources should be focused, should be focused on Einrant. For instance, I write books having to do with applications of objectivism to everyday life. But I wouldn't want ARI subsidizing or promoting them because it's not Einrant. It's me. And the same thing with independent thinkers. I think what ARI should be doing is teaching a philosophy to the political commentators and to the people who would apply Einrant's ideas to the culture, but not actually do it. I think that's the job. So I get that. And so let me, so we disagree on what Einrant Institute should do. I mean, that's, that's just the reality. Right? I, you know, this is the thing that if, if it existed, if there was an opportunity in the world where the Einrant Institute could train these people, could train the political thinkers, could train the found policy guys, could train like we trained Alex and train these people. And then they could go get jobs at universities, at Kato, you know, at think tanks at these places. Then great. And I would agree with you. That's what we should do. But the actual reality is, and, and, and this is, and Einrant talked about this. Einrant talked about the fact. Somebody asked her, what would you do? I think it's in what one should do in the essay. She said, one of the things, but maybe not, maybe it's somewhere else, or maybe Linda told me this or something, but this is, this is the idea. The left trains their people and gets them jobs, the universities, the right today trains their people and puts them in all these think tanks that they've created for these people. We in objectivism should train our people and then abandon them. And then, but that's exactly what it is. We would abandon them because they can't get jobs in academia. We've tried. We spent a lot of money on trying to do that. They cannot get jobs in other think tanks. Alex is unique in that he's happens to be an entrepreneur and he can go do it himself, but that's unique. Not everybody is like that. The job of the Einrant Institute and, and, and, and Einrant said this, what we need is that it is a place where you can hire the people that you train. And that's exactly what we do at the Institute. I believe that that is the most important thing. The most important thing. We can do the increase awareness of objectivism so that we don't come off cultishly and narrowly, but that we actually have ideas. We can't just, we don't just quote Einrant. We actually have ideas about things and we apply them. So I am very proud. And this is, and we're going to have to leave it here because, you know, we should take other questions. I, but I'll leave it with this where we disagree. I am very proud of the people I've trained or we've trained. I'm very proud of Ilan writing on farm policy and getting those words out. I wish I wish I had 20 more people like that applying objectivism and writing out of the Institute about these issues because I, because, you know, ideally they would be out there in the world, but they, they're not going to make a living out there. And I, I want to support. And I want to make sure that these people have a job and that they can, and I think that this is what it means to promote objectivism. What it means to promote objectivism is not to promote Iron Man. That's one aspect of it. But what it really means to promote objectivism, if your goal is to change the world, and my goal has always been to change the world. My goal is not being, and I told the board when I took over my, I did not view my job as prime as exclusively to protect, to defend, to, you know, preserve my job was to change the world, to change the world, you have to apply, apply, apply, apply, apply. And that's what I did. If you remember right after 9-11, what did I do? I took Iron Man's ideas and applied them to 9-11 and applied them to foreign policy. And I went out there and hustled to do that. Now you could argue that was bad, which is fine. Or shouldn't have been the focus of the Institute. But, but that's how I view it. And I would love that if there was somebody right now writing on the, on the riots and all of this stuff constantly and writing about politics and writing about all kinds of issues outside of politics, all, you know, science and all this other stuff. And people are going to disagree with stuff that the Iron Man Institute puts out. And I, there's no litmus test counts. It's a, the claims that were called, there's no litmus test. I know we probably, we disagree on certain political issues. Betsy, nobody's kicking you out of the movie movement because we disagree about politics. It's, it's a movement where we're going to disagree on application. But I think if we can get the best minds using objects using objectivism to apply these ideas, we come across as a movement. We come across as an ideology. We come across as something that's interesting. And I know, I mean, maybe this sounds a little, but other than Rand and Leonard, I don't think anybody's brought more people to Iron Rand than just me talking. And that's because I, I apply objectivism in an interesting way. And I think that attracts people to Iron Rand. I don't do it. My goal is not for them to follow you on. I mean, I'm not Iron Man. My goal is for them to read Iron Man. And I say that all the time, go read Iron Man. That's this awareness and a little bit of understanding, because I don't think I enhance understanding that much beyond what they read from Iron Man. My goal is to increase awareness. And I increase awareness by talking about Trump. You know, and some people don't like it that I talk about Trump, but that's, that's the reality. You're muted. I can't hear anything you're saying. Well, I muted her because you said that it's, that's it. Okay, let it just say something and then we'll go on. Okay. What about having debates among objectivists sponsored by ARI over controversial topics? Yeah, we could do, we could do that if there was, if there were, if there were, you know, if we could find equal partners, if we could find people who could stood up for that.  Sure. I don't have any problem with that. And one of the reasons, if you remember that when I debated, debated Leonard Peacock on immigration, which to me is I get a little shiver when I think about debating Leonard Peacock was a little crazy. Was one of the reasons he agreed to do it and why I wanted to do it was we wanted to illustrate to the objectivist audience. There can be disagreements in objectivism. We can have those debates and discussions. The word of the Einran Institute is not written on stone somewhere. It is not Einran. It is not even part of objectivism, technically. You know, so, but it is to the best of our knowledge, the best of our ability, the application of objectivism and people are going to disagree about it. I don't have a problem with people disagreeing with, as long as they do it respectfully and they do it, they do it honestly. But I don't think, I don't think an institute whose mission is to create a culture whose guiding principles of reason can do it without massive application and showing the world what it looks like to apply. And that to me is the mission. So it's, it's, I don't see any other way. And realizing that I take a risk that I offend you or somebody like you and they stop supporting us and that's happened. After 9-11 a lot of people stopped supporting the institute because they didn't like the message. I know that around Trump a lot of people have stopped supporting the institute because they didn't like the message. I have to call it like I see it. I can't, I can't take a poll of my donors and figure out what, what, how to apply and how to not apply based on democracy. Before we move to a broader topic of politics and capitalism, there is one more about Inland Institute or even about the Institute Objective Standard Institute. Could you make any comment on the recent season in the Objectivist movement? No. Okay. So let's move to politics. Let's move to... But there's a question about the closed philosophy that Aaron asked early on. Aaron, would you like to, I try to unmute you. Would you like to join us on the video? Is he there? There he is. I'd add video, but my internet is really questionable. Sorry. Don't worry about my voice. Yeah. It just, it just was, Aaron was one of the first to ask a question. So I thought we'd go to that. Go ahead. Thanks. Yep. Okay. This is going to be a rough ride, I think. Objectivism deals with the nature of reality. Am I right? It depends by what you mean. No, Objectivism doesn't deal with anything. Objectivism is the philosophy of Ayn Rand. It's an actual name of something very concrete. Yeah. But part of that philosophy is our understanding of reality. Yes, it is. Okay. When that understanding changes, you'd better have a way to write that into the source code of your philosophy, because that philosophy is. Wrong. Broken like an operating system that needs a patch.  I'm not an expert in quantum mechanics. So I want to be clear. I am stepping a bit outside of my expertise. And so I, I apologize a bit if I seem a bit out of my place, but like, I've read a little bit on how Objectivists address things like quantum mechanics, the entanglement phenomenon. And they seem to think it's like some kind of trick played on them. It's not, it's real. And that relates back to my point about it. They're closed philosophy. Okay. How are you going to address this? Yeah. Okay. So two things. Yeah, you're right. When, when something is discovered where Ayn Rand is wrong, it all need to be fixed. It just won't be Objectivism. We'll call it something else. Why is that a problem? So I view myself as a truth seeker who happens at this point in my life to believe that Ayn Rand, who ideas are true, not every little detail about everything she said about anything, but in general the principles of philosophy is true. If somebody came along and said, look, there's a, there's a something in metaphysics, it's off. Look, this is, this is, then I'd say great. No, we've taken a great leap forward in terms of the truth, but it's not Objectivism. So now let's call it something else. Let's call it Randianism, or let's call it whatever the person's name who discovered it after, or let's call it something truthism. I don't know whatever you want to call it. It doesn't, in that sense, this is not some kind of, and by the way, it's interesting because let's say, let's say we disagree about the source code. Let's say you think this new invention is a new truth. And Joe thinks that this invention is complete BS and it's wrong, that I and Rand was right originally. What do we call it then? What do you call it? So we both call it Objectivism, and which version is the true version? I mean, so let's just call what I and Rand did Objectivism. And then when you want to improve it, and I'm not being cynical here that as I believe it one day, some genius will be able to improve it. Call that whatever we want to call it later on, but we know clearly what I and Rand wrote and differentiated from the truth. And that's all I and Rand asked after all we're doing is following her wishes. She said, I want Objectivism to be the stuff I wrote or that I approved of so that in the future, there's no confusion about what is attributed to me versus what is me. So it's a property rights respect for somebody's wishes kind of notion. It's not a philosophical question at all, right? Nobody's debating that I and Rand is a closed system philosophically. It's a closed system in terms of the name you give it. Philosophy cannot be closed. Objectivism can.  Bertrand Russell stuff that Bertrand Russell didn't write. And by the way, but Russell is wrong about everything. So if I improve with Russell's things about something that doesn't make me a resilient who's improved on Russell, that would be bizarre. You know, so one day there will be people who are influenced by I and Rand who think true or not that they've improved on her ideas. They won't call themselves objectivist. Hopefully, although I think they will ultimately, they won't call themselves objectivist or call themselves Randians. Just like we call people who are statillians or Platonists. They're not advocates of Plato or advocates of Aristotle. They're just influenced by them. And there will be a whole school of thought that is influenced by a man and there'll be a name for it. But what I ran asked is you don't call that objectivism. Did you keep objectivism as the category that refers to what she wrote and what she advocated. So that's that. The second is quantum mechanics. There is no view in objectivism about quantum mechanics. Physics. Some objectivists have a view about the interpretation of quantum mechanics. They have a view that even in the quantum world a is a and the law of causality holds. And by the way, even physicists. Now I'm not a physicist and I know you're not a physicist, but this is my understanding as an engineer in a previous life of the state of physics. Even physicists. Some physicists disagree about the interpretation of quantum. The phenomena. Nobody in objectivism said phenomena doesn't exist. That would be result. And that's not a question of philosophy. That's completely a question of physics. How you interpret the phenomena is a philosophical question. And all objectivists have said this is not objectivism. All objectivists have said. Is that the conventional interpretation of quantum mechanics is wrong. And that there are others and I know. I think I know three different objectivist physicists with three different alternative views. Interpretations about quantum mechanics that are consistent with the law of causality. And I know which one is right. And I don't care, right? Because I don't care that much about quantum physics. It doesn't interest me that much. But it's not an issue in objectivism other than to say the philosophical interpretation, the way people use quantum mechanics is wrong. You could say, hey, you guys are wrong. You don't know what you're talking about. The interpretation is right. Fine. Let's have a discussion about that. But that's more philosophical discussion than a physics discussion or physics relates to it. And that's a discussion. Philosophers of science should have not me and you who barely know any physics. We should avoid this conversation. But in terms of what the movement or what objectivism or what objectivists think of this, I think it's a misinterpretation to say that we reject quantum physics.  Or we reject a certain interpretation. I forget. Is it the bore interpretation or the bomb interpretation? I always confuse those two physicists. But, you know, and then some objectivist philosophers show the link between Kantian philosophy and sudden approaches to modern physics and why Kant's philosophy is harming modern physics, not again in the physics sense, but in the interpretation in the philosophy of science sense. And that is completely legitimate. You guys can ask questions in chat. Please stay with the topic of criticism, because I'm getting a lot of questions, which are general Q&A questions about objectivism. You can ask them on Yaron Brook show. You can become a patron and you can ask many questions. Today we try to do criticism. What is, does Inland Institute use any KPIs? And what are those? Is this like a media hit to reach or do you measure somehow culture influence? So KPIs are really something we struggle with. And we go back and forth constantly in terms of what are the best KPIs. And over the years they have varied. But we have a number of KPIs. So everything driven in the institute is goal oriented. And we try to be as, you know, data driven as you can. So they're obvious KPIs, like how much content do we produce and how much that content is consumed. That is consumption of content. Other KPIs have to do with consumption of Ayn Rand content. So essay contests, books to teachers, how many teachers teach Ayn Rand in the culture. Other KPIs might have to do with mentions of Ayn Rand in the media. That is, how much is she in the culture? Right? How many citations in academic literature are there for Ayn Rand? So all of those could be KPIs. But another important one that I've always said is how many intellectuals do we have and how many intellectuals are we trained and how many intellectuals are in our pipeline for being trained. So a lot of those, Tal, who is the new CEO, a lot of his KPIs around the internet because we've decided in some way that Ayn Rand should be an internet company. And to a large extent it's about consumption of content. How much of our content is consumed, which relates to both awareness and understanding. And then how many people do we train? So I'd say those are the two big ones. Consumption of content and how many intellectuals are trained and that goes to awareness, understanding, and acceptance. But it's a challenge because how do you measure influence on the culture, which is the ultimate KPI? I don't know if anybody comes up with a good KPI on that. Let me know. This one is a bit more personal. Could you support yourself without Ayn Rand Institute as a sole podcaster and public intellectual? Well, support myself at what standard of living? I get very little money from the Ayn Rand Institute. So let's be clear today. I get a little bit of money to help them fundraise. And I get paid when I give lectures, right? So per lecture. So when I come to Europe and give lectures, often the Ayn Rand Institute pays me. It depends on the standard of living. A lot of people have told me, but the amount of money I get as a podcaster, they could survive. I couldn't because I live at a very high standard of living. I spend a lot of money. That's because I have a lot of money. That's because I've never only had one job in my life. I have been involved with a hedge fund for 22 years. I am the managing partner of the hedge fund today. That is my full-time job. All the stuff you do, you see me do podcasting. All the stuff you see me lecturing around the world. All that is my part-time job. My full-time job is actually running a hedge fund. So I'm a pretty busy guy. And running a hedge fund, I mean, running a part of a hedge fund is, you know, this year is not very lucrative. This year I'm losing money. But other years is very lucrative. And so I could tomorrow stop doing everything in a objectivism and live very well. I could tomorrow stop getting any money from the institute. Just do my podcast and my hedge fund and live very well. The amount of money I get from the institute is, for me, relatively insignificant. If that answers people's questions. Not that I'm sure any of this is anybody's business, but okay. But don't support the institute. Just so you know, today I don't get, you know, very much money from the institute at all. So I'm not a big expense item on the institute. When I worked there full-time, I had a good salary. I think I did a good job. So I got a good salary. What do you invest in with your hedge fund? I invest in small community banks in the United States. I'm both long and short. But I can't talk about it because if I talk about it, the SEC will be down my throat. So I cannot publicly. I can't be perceived as marketing it in any way. I can see. But do you try to? I don't use Austrian economics. I don't use, you know, my, the trading strategy I have does not require knowledge of objectivism, although with the periphery, maybe some macroeconomic stuff. It doesn't. It's based on stuff that I did when I was an academic professor of finance in academia. My partner and I wrote some academic papers that published. You can find them in the Journal of Finance and the Journal of Quantitative Financial Analysis and the top financial journals. We wrote papers describing a phenomena. And 22 years ago, a large hedge fund came to us and asked, hey, can you take your academic research and turn it into a trading strategy? And it turned out we could. And since then, you know, I've never made a huge amount of money, but I made enough money to live well, to live well above and beyond what I could ever make as a podcaster. I mean, unless I was a Jordan Peterson, he makes, he makes a lot of money just from public appearances. Nobody's paying me $100,000 a gig. When they do, we know objectivism is really winning. Good luck with your business. And there comes comments defending Polish freedom nationalism. They say that globally nationalism has become more of an abbreviation for anti-globalism rather than any nationalistic ideology. And it can be seen as a society egoism, as a collective egoism, like Western world defending itself together against some dangerous civilization. By the way, before that, let's do away his, if you believe that, okay, let's do Western world. Fine. So let's get rid of Poland, merge it in with the rest of the countries in Europe, create a big country called Western Europe, Western civilization, whatever you want to call this new country, and then defend Western civilization. I'm all for that. You know, but I have a sense that Polish nationalists would not go for that. That, you know, that they would reject that idea. So look, there is no such thing as collective egoism. Egoism is an attribute of individuals, not of collectives. The only self-interest of a collective is the self-interest of individuals within it. I am not against defending Western civilization. I've kind of dedicated my life to defending Western civilization. I work hard at it. So everything I do is focused on defending Western civilization. You don't need walls around a state focused on the nation in order to defend Western civilization. Indeed, waste and civilization is a way to lay down the walls and embrace anybody. I mean, hey, are the Poles willing to accept immigrants in the Middle East who embrace Western civilization? Are they willing to accept them as the nationalists? Are they willing to accept them as full citizens of Poland, even though they're from the Middle East, if they embrace all the ideas of Western civilization? Probably not. Are the Polish nationalists willing to accept Chinese refugees who want to embrace the values of Western civilization? So stop talking to me about Western civilization. You're talking about your particular genetic lineage, which is called Polish. That's what Polish nationalism is about. There's not one I order of Polish, of Western civilization and Polish nationalism. Indeed, nationalism is a rejection of Western ideology. Western ideology, and here is the term that makes me grumpy again, globalism. I had a term for this. It's called an anti-concept. It doesn't mean anything. It lumps together things that are legitimate and things that are illegitimate. What does globalism mean? It means, some people say, it means one world government. Why I want to know how many people in the world today believe in one world government? Really, how many people in the world believe in one world government? Five? Five thousand? A hundred thousand maybe? There's no movement to establish one world government. Now, does globalism mean globalization? Zero tariffs and the movements of goods across countries? I'm for that. Does that make me a globalist, even though I don't believe in one world government? What about does it mean movement of people across state lines? Does globalism means that? Well, again, I'm for that generally. But I'm not for one world government. So what do you call me? I'm against one world government. Pro-immigration, pro-trade. It's an anti-concept that means nothing. It's supposed to lump you together with the United Nations.  There's not a person on the planet Earth who hates the United Nations more than I do. Does that make me an anti-globalist, even though I'm for immigration? It doesn't make any sense. Just the use of the term. The use of the term. So I am for fewer countries. I think there are way too many countries in the world. I think having 200-something countries is ridiculous. What's the difference between northern Macedonia? Can't even be Macedonia. Northern Macedonia, Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro, and the former Yugoslavia. What exactly is the differences between them? Why do we have 75 countries in that little piece of land? Einred wrote about this by the way in the 60s, just in case you're worried about that I'm deviating from objectivism. It was called global balkanization. And she wrote about the fracturing of countries and little countries here and little countries there and everybody has a country based on what? Based on my, you know, I'm from this tribe and you're from that tribe and everybody has their little tribe that they want to have their little country for. It's primitivism and it's primitiveism and it's a return to the Middle Ages. There's no difference. I mean, who cares if you're Polish or not? What matters is what kind of country do you have? What matters is what kind of life do you have? And if Ukrainians come in, who cares? What's the difference between Poles and Ukrainians? Can we count the genes that make up the difference? But why won't you accept Ukrainians as a country? I mean, the whole thing about this, about these arbitrary borders. So yes, there should be more than one country. We want more than one country so we have options so we can run away when our country gets bad instead of, you know, sacrificing for it. This is the anti-nationalist view. We can run away to a better country. But you don't need 200 and something countries to do that. You shouldn't have as many countries as it does. There should be a lot of fewer countries. And when your country gets really, really bad, you should leave it. And what you should fight for is the freedom to leave and the freedom to go somewhere where you can live a better life for yourself. Rather than building walls to keep you in and to keep others out, which is what all walls are built for. They start out as walls to keep others out and they soon become walls to keep you in. Is there some flow in capitalism? There is some weak point, maybe, or something dangerous about that could come with a free world? Yeah, it's dangerous. Life is dangerous. Capitalism definitely has risk. If you think capitalism is risk-free, life just is some of your Marxist utopia where stuff just shows up and everything's no. Capitalism requires risk but risk is not a bad thing. Risk is not a negative. Now, it's not dangerous in the sense that evil stuff. But no, there's no negatives to capitalism as long as you understand what negatives mean. I don't consider working hard a negative. I don't consider taking risk a negative. I don't consider being free a negative. So, no, there's zero problems in that sense with capitalism. Capitalism is an ideal system. Truly is ideal. Because what does it do? It leaves individuals free to live their life based on their values pursuing their own happiness using their own mind. How can that be bad? There's nothing bad about that. Zero, zilch, nothing. I have, for example, Zemovid here. Zemovid, are you with us? Who was making some comments about global warming and the climate change? Zemovid, you have a question. I saw you chatting. I can speak right now. Okay, let me read his question then. What is free market solution to the issue of global warming and human influence on the environment? Especially, what should we say to those who claim that due to pollution, etc., human environment will worsen? I'm not sure if this is the Zemovid question, but I have a second. One of them is from him. So, there is two. Could capitalism and progress be considered dangerous to the future of the planet and the mankind? What would be the objective response to the potential issue of planet pollution or a global pandemic? So, there is. So, first, they are legitimate issues around pollution. And those issues are dealt with by private property. It's really simple, right? If everything was private, which is what capitalism is, capitalism, everything is private. The rivers are private. The beaches are private. The parts of the ocean are private. So, it's easy to deal with pollution.  We all know that. That's pretty straightforward. So, the solution to most pollution problems is private property. If you spew something into there that causes me to feel like I'm in a position to spew something into there that causes me to be sick, I sue you. And if enough people sue over a particular issue, it's completely, and the courts using science, determine that they're right, that harm did come to them, then it's completely legitimate for legislature to pass a law that says this product cannot be spewed into there. But it has to be objective. It has to go through a process. It has to be proven a court of law that this is truly bad. And it really causes damage. And you can objectively, scientifically prove that that damage occurs. So, that's how you solve almost every issue of pollution. Now, you could argue that global warming is different, right? Because global warming is just our activity, everybody's activity, it's not any one person's activity, is causing significant changes in the atmosphere that are going to kill us all. That's the caricature version, right? Let's say that we're true. Okay. Then, how do we figure out voluntarily, how do we figure out ways to convince people, to change their behavior in ways that stop this, or, which I think is the better solution, how do we convince people to invest in technologies that reverse the process? I mean, that technology is, for example, that sucks CO2 out of the air. There's a technology that puts stuff in the atmosphere that cools the planet down, right? You better write about global warming before you do that, otherwise you'll get global cooling. There are lots of technologies that can be, and there are lots of people out there, the Bill Gates, the Amazon, what's his name? Bezos. Bezos, there's Elon Musk, there's all these billionaires who really care about the world, care about life. Why wouldn't they be investing if early there was a problem and you left it and you didn't have government force it down our throat? They would be investing instead of going to Mars, they'd be investing in technologies that made it possible for us to save the planet. Not save the planet because the planet Mother Earth will be angry, but save the planet because they live in the planet and they're human beings and they want to make life possible in the planet. See, if this was an existential risk, I think they would take up the pandemic, right? The only person I know who took the pandemic seriously about five years ago talked about it and then put his money where his mouth is, is Bill Gates. So Bill Gates five years ago gave a talk at TED saying we were vulnerable as a society to pandemics. He then started, his foundation started a non-profit research program, I forget the name of it, with some other philanthropists and I think with some governments and they started this thing to study and to start developing a platform for creating vaccines for pandemics when they hit. Great, I think that's wonderful. There's a voluntary way of dealing with future vaccines. Unfortunately, if he had done that 10 years earlier, I think we would have a vaccine today for COVID. But it's still young, they're still developing, they're still working on this platform and hopefully one day we'll be able to develop vaccines like this because of investments that Bill Gates made and the risk of pandemics globally will be reduced dramatically. Those are the kind of things that stop global kind of phenomena and there's other technologies that could reduce the impact of global warming but first you have to be convinced one that it's real, the global warming and two, you have to make it something that people do voluntarily that's crammed down their throat by government. And by the way, governments are doing nothing about it. Even the governments that pretend that they're very environmentally friendly like Germany is not doing anything about it. The CO2 emission is going up dramatically. So even the governments that pretend are not doing anything about it. So why even countenance governments let the market work? The idea that participants in the market don't care about the destruction of mankind is nuts. Participants in the market, greedy capitalists care more about the health of mankind than anybody else. They're part of mankind, they live in mankind, the customers are mankind, everything around them is mankind, they would invest in this and they would solve the problem much better than any government is going to solve the problem. We're going to wrap it up soon. I have two last questions regarding the strategy. Yaron, do you own Bitcoin? No. Why and why Inrant Institute is not promoting Bitcoin enough it seems is the best tool that can help us give freedom and privacy from government and major financial institutions. Well, this is the biggest market player in a sphere of money. Why this tool is not so much promoted or supported by ARI? Well, I don't buy it because I don't understand I buy stuff that I understand I don't understand what the value is. What's Bitcoin worth? Today like $9,000 Why is it worth $9,000? Well, because probably people who want to buy it, they want to pay so much for it. It's completely detached from reality in my view it doesn't reflect anything real it's not clear to me what the value should be, should be $11,000 should be $2,000 it's hugely volatile it can't be money because money one of the basic principles about money is that it's value is stable. Anything that's volatile cannot be money and one of the reasons when fiat money disappears is when it becomes volatile or when it becomes so, you know, when it goes like this right? I don't you can't use Bitcoin, right? Because if I go and buy something, well, the next day it could be 10% more 10% less well, did I get a good deal did I get a bad deal that what is value? So until Bitcoin becomes money I can't use it as money and it won't become money until it stabilizes over price I don't believe it'll ever stabilize over price because I don't believe anybody can actually articulate how you value it like the value of gold is stable in history it's purchasing power is stable and it's been stable for thousands of years relatively speaking and when you discover that new gold that the price fluctuates a little bit but not by much and it's you know what gold can buy, approximately now people today speculate on it because it's viewed as a financial asset not as money but when it was money you always knew what you could buy with gold I don't know what I can buy with Bitcoin I have no idea what I can I know what I can buy today but I don't know what I'd be able to buy in a week as long as it is speculative it cannot be money and I don't think it will ever be money okay I think in a free market Bitcoin the value of Bitcoin goes to zero so here's why I think Bitcoin has value but I don't know how to price it I'm a finance guy I like discounted present value I like real things Bitcoin's value is that you can use it to do illegal stuff you can use it to buy drugs you can use it to buy weapons and you can use it to move capital from country to country when your country has capital constraints so you can do things anonymously which the real value of doing things anonymously most of the time I don't care about anonymity I use my credit card every day when do I care about anonymity when I'm about to do something illegal when I don't want the government to know when I really care now I'm not saying that's bad I'm just saying that's a fact the fact is that Bitcoin and all cryptocurrency get their value from people's desire to do things illegally maybe justifiably maybe not but to do things that are illegal in where they live so the real value of Bitcoin and all cryptocurrency right now at least is how valuable is it to you or me or to anybody to engage in illegal activity and it's true that as society deteriorates this state becomes more intrusive as our freedom shrink the value of Bitcoin will go up because it becomes more valuable to do illegal stuff because more stuff is illegal you want the state less in your life but I don't know how to value that I don't know how to put a number of that and again that is constantly changing it's constantly fluctuating if the more China cracks down on freedom in China the more crypto will go up in price I also don't understand what the difference is between Bitcoin and 100 other crypto currencies there are lots of them to me that indicates inflation the fact that there are lots of crypto currencies you don't have to rely on one there are just too many of them and I don't know how to value them well and again I don't know how anybody values them I've talked to crypto guys I don't know how to value them they believe well I don't believe I don't know if Bitcoin is the one that wants to survive anyway and in a free market since everything is basically legal not everything but everything reasonable is legal crypto currencies value will go to zero and you'll have stuff that's based on gold it might be crypto it might be but everything will be private all transactions will be private the government won't have access to any of it so you can have crypto currency backed by gold which I think is the solution ultimately you need a physical money needs to be physical money needs to have a value beyond its use as money otherwise it won't survive in a free market it'll survive in a world of fiat money because nothing is physical in a world of fiat money but it will not survive in a world of free markets in a free market crypto that are just zeros and ones that have no base in physical world and I know you just say I'm old and I don't understand but that's okay I'm willing to accept that you guys are young and you don't understand next time you come to Poland I will try to arrange you some debate with a Bitcoin libertarian or somebody I would like to hear it but I don't think it's an important issue you guys think crypto is valuable go buy crypto why why make a big deal out of it theoretically it makes more sense in a free market that's not hard to prove it loses all its value I would like to hear it in a free market good money drives out bad money in a free market bad money and so fiat and crypto drives out gold in a bad in a mixed economy which is what we have today but in a good market gold would drive out all of the forms of money so if not the Bitcoin where in what group organization tool do you see the biggest opportunity for ideas of freedom to actualize example example let me just be clear Bitcoin actualizes your potential for freedom yes I can use money which is not in hands of anybody it's not in the control of the supply of the money it's not in hands of the government but it's in the hands of speculators the value of what the value of your money it's not money get rid of that idea because it's not money but the value of Bitcoin changes can change 10, 20, 30% in one day that can be money so it's an asset that's speculative great buy it but you're not expressing your freedom by doing that I can buy real estate I can buy lots of assets that are not controlled by the government I can buy gold and it's not controlled by the government its supply is not controlled by the government so there's nothing unique about Bitcoin and again it cannot serve as money if I'm a seller of things I'm not going to put a price on my goods unless that in Bitcoin unless that price can change every single minute based on the value of Bitcoin in that given minute basically what that does is it links Bitcoin to the to the dollar and what does that do so you know it's a fantasy you guys have that you think you're using Bitcoin so you're cool and cool means freedom but it doesn't it doesn't mean freedom you gain no freedom by using it it's an asset I invest in assets all the time I'm glad you can do it I'm not against banning it or anything like that I'm for complete freedom when it comes to Bitcoin I just think under complete freedom it goes away and don't you think that like investing in Bitcoin would be more moral than investing in Chinese Yuan I think the only thing about investing is to make money there's no moral about what you invest in what you're investing is something that actually is the pursuit of slavery investing is to make money well by investing in Bitcoin then it's immoral because you're worse off you're worse off because you lost money what's good about okay so there is maybe there is some other tool which you find unique and an opportunity for spreading some people thought in 90s internet is something that will bring liberty to people as it brings knowledge do you think it is internet or something else some project maybe some nothing brings liberty to people people have to embrace liberty and the only way people will embrace liberty is by adopting a philosophy of liberty by adopting ideas of liberty so the only way you can get liberty is by educating people about it there's no shortcuts there's no gimmicks the internet is still an amazing tool for educating people about liberty it won't bring you liberty it isn't liberty in and of itself it is a means of communication if you look at this we're talking here the people here from Poland I saw somebody from Israel before the people in the United States there's somebody from the UK was on before the people from all over the world interacting and getting hopefully some education about the ideas of liberty that's all you can do the idea that there's some gimmick there's some product there's some investment that will create liberty the world doesn't work that way what is required is to get people to think differently and only education can get people to think differently and then the internet becomes a great tool to educate people maybe you can use bitcoin to educate people about monetary standards and that's a in to liberty but you can't it's just a tool all these things are just tools they're not liberty in and of themselves liberty has to be established it's going to require a lot of work to establish liberty so what is the biggest challenge or threat to spreading objectivism and making the world and society more reasonable and the biggest threat is unreason the biggest threat is the ability of people to think and the biggest threat is diluting and perverting the philosophy the biggest threat are the nationalists, the socialists the conservatives the people who are ideologically different than what we are they're ideologically opposed to opposition this is a battle of ideas it's not a battle of gimmicks it's not a battle of propaganda it's not a battle of marketing it's a battle of philosophies and until the biggest threat to our philosophy is all philosophies that are opposed to our philosophy so it's a philosophical it's a philosophical struggle and that means a lot of discussions a lot of debates, a lot of Q&As a lot of lectures, a lot of books a lot of articles, a lot of books more books, more books, more books I know nobody reads anymore but it's still the people who matter and I think in a sense wasting one time on looking for gimmick looking for shortcut is wasting one's time and we don't have time because the world is going in the wrong direction and what we should be doing is advocating for ideas for philosophy for a revolution a moral revolution an ethical revolution until you get that, all this other stuff it doesn't matter we are about to do this for two hours so thank you guys all for watching and attending this this event I hope it was interesting for you let me also, if you want to thank Yaron Bruk, you can go to Yaronbrukshow.com and you can subscribe please subscribe to my channel because there are all links to Facebook, to Twitter, YouTube and Apple iTunes you can click support you can send some money you can chip in to say thank you to our guest today if you want to thank me for putting this up you can go to facebook.com