Peter Bogosian is next. He's doing a talk called authenticity. He is a philosophy professor at Portland State University. His forthcoming book is a pretty cool titled book. It's going to be called a manual for creating atheists Interesting. Again, his talk is called authenticity. His haiku is this Authenticity. If you can learn to fake that baby, you're all set Please welcome Peter Bogosian Thank you About 15 years ago, I lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico One day I came back to my car and there was a note on the window Very interested.  I couldn't believe it I was indignant. I was outraged So I took the note and I threw it on the floor And I went on with my day trying not to think about the note It failed and I kept coming back to the idea that I was so discourteous. I Noticed when I was driving that I was a little more aggressive than the people of New Mexico I at first I attributed that to the fact that I'm from Boston, Massachusetts and in Extra-credit and and in Boston people are much more aggressive when they drive But the more I drove the more I came to the realization that Boy, I was really not a nice guy. I was kind of a jerk when I drove So I took the note off the floor And I taped it on to my Onto my dashboard The reason that I did that was because I wanted to remind myself of the type of person that I wanted to change into and The reason that I'm telling you this story is because it fits with two themes of my talk tonight Authenticity and for my talks about authenticity, but specifically it's about forthright speech and Police revision and we need both The theme of this year's amazing meeting is fighting the fakers Tonight, I'll argue that fighting the fakers starts with authenticity Fighting the fakers starts with fighting the fakery in yourself I'll talk about two types of authenticity The first and easiest to accomplish is forthright speech Fourth right speech is clear honest and direct and forthright speech matters For too long people have been afraid to speak clearly Honestly and directly they've been afraid to say what they mean Particularly when it comes to superstition and religion, they're afraid to offend They're afraid to hurt people's feelings. They're afraid of how they'll be perceived so they cower to dangerous ideas They silence themselves One consequence of this failure to be forthright in speech is that dangerous ideas flourish They gain traction and multiply Once this happens fakery becomes entrenched and more difficult to eradicate Only after fakery is removed can we focus on the truth If everyone were authentic, we wouldn't have to figure out what others mean because everyone would say what they actually mean and Saying what we mean is essential because the only way to solve problems is by speaking clearly Honestly and directly The second type of authenticity. I'll discuss is much more difficult to achieve It's being authentic with yourself at its core being authentic with yourself means being willing to revise your beliefs This matters Intensely because belief revision allows us to change our behaviors and solve our problems If you're willing to revise your beliefs, then you're always fight the faker in yourself So tonight, I'll talk about authenticity First in terms of forthright speech and then in terms of a willingness to revise beliefs I'll argue that authenticity must not only be how we get our message across. It must be one of our core messages Finally, I'll conclude with three suggestions for how to speak and live more authentically Authentic speech is forthright speaking authentically is honest is speaking honestly and sincerely It's frank clear and direct Historical examples of people who are forthright in their speech and punished as a result are Socrates and Gandhi and Nelson Mandela Socrates was imprisoned as a direct consequence of his forthright speech. He could have escaped but he chose not to Socrates Gandhi and Nelson Mandela were sincere Better to be in jail than to be free but complicit for them freedom was a type of collaboration with injustice Authenticity was a refusal to collaborate their speech and their actions were consistent with who they were as people contemporary skeptics and Secularists who speak in a forthright honest way include Richard Dawkins Ion her see Ali Sam Harris Michael Schermer and James Randy They are models of authenticity and among the most effective advocates for reason and secularism Well, I don't agree with every one of their positions. I have tremendous respect for them They're sincere. They take risks and their forthright speech has made a tremendous difference in reversing the tide of unreason Dawkins for example on the role religion on a plan society Ali about the status of women in religion Harris about faith Schermer about education and secularism and Randy about the need to unremittingly call out every manner of faker I also want to note that they occasionally disagree with each other Dawkins and Harris for example Disagree over gun control, but the idea is that they have a rational framework from which they can disagree They say exactly what they mean They call people out and they respond when they're called out.  They're forthright. They fight thugs and fakers One quality they have in common is that they speak truth in the face of danger Ancient Greeks had a word for this Parahesia Parahesia is frankness Truth-telling speaking at risk in front of a hostile audience. It's speaking openly without ambiguity or concealment Parahesia is boldness It's when you speak with sincerity and not because you want to flatter someone or reap personal reward It's frankness instead of persuasion But speaking truth in the face of danger also has a moral component You're attempting to communicate a foreign thinking so that it may be prevented Speaking truth in the face of danger is a duty and it's often the only way to solve problems and to prevent dangerous ideas from spreading Just as we have models for authentic speech so too other models for in authentic speech American televangelist Joel Austin whose grotesque insincerity Deceives literally millions of people each week uses hollow Zen sounding feel-good platitudes like I believe God gives you the grace to do what you need to do and You're right When you folk when you focus on being a blessing God makes sure you're always blessed in abundance Austin is a particular concern because he markets his message of unreason under the banner of hope He encourages people to barter the rationality for coin ultimately. They lose both Austin and other fakers have become exceedingly wealthy as a result of their inauthenticity Savvy marketing in complete disregard for human well-being For Austin insincerity is big business We need to be forthright about the potential negative consequences of being forthright Forthright speech doesn't necessarily come with external reward as I mentioned earlier in some context It can land you in jail or even get you killed for a heresy or blasphemy There are also less dramatic consequences to forthright speech For example, you may be accused of being an evangelical skeptic or an evangelical atheist in My experience what people mean by this is that you're speaking too clearly and in too plain language about facts and evidence You're speaking too bluntly You're not couching ideas with ambiguous words or specialized terms that few understand and you're more concerned with the truth Then with how others perceive you As a side note, I have been accused of being an evangelical atheist I even have a forthcoming book entitled a manual for creating atheists and to be clear I have never tried to convert anyone. I've only paved the way for people to convert themselves Another possible consequence of forthright speech is the accusation that you've offended people But as long as you're engaging ideas and not attacking immutable characteristics of people like skin color race height age sexual orientation Ethnic origin or any other unchangeable characteristic This is what someone's offense should mean to you These do not deserve dignity people deserve dignity If it's not an immutable characteristic if it's changeable then it's fair game and subject to scrutiny Beliefs are fair game Religion is fair game faith is fair game claims about the world our fair game culture is fair game Public policies are fair game Don't buy into the idea that if someone's offended by your forthright speech you need to silence yourself So one negative consequence of speaking authentically and being accused of evangelical skepticism and you'll find it Interestingly, it's people who share your same conclusions Is that some people may become upset? Well, I personally don't consider this to be a problem. It becomes a problem when you care deeply about those you've upset People you respect and love when they're your children or your coaches or your friends Nobody wants people they care about to be angry with them. Nobody wants people to hurt people they love But these moments of authentic communication about things that matter are also opportunities to have the most meaningful and the most profound relationships in your life People will know exactly who you are and accept you are not What they see is what they get Aristotle wrote that the highest form of friendship is between two virtuous people Speak authentically not merely to stop dangerous ideas from spreading But for yourself and for those around you forthright speech will forge relationships that matter Relationships that are worth having in my experience authentic relationships have given my life more meaning and more fulfillment than anything Much more for example than professional success But forthright authentic speech is not enough to fight the fakers One could be an authentic racist or an authentic sexist or hold some other repugnant malignant belief Forthright speech does not guarantee truth compassion or kindness For these we need our other core values of skepticism and humanism But we also need to be genuinely willing to revise our beliefs Being genuinely open to revise your beliefs prevents us from slipping into dogmatism It helps us to become more humble about what it is that we think we know Being genuinely open to revise our beliefs is the only way that I know of to keep our delusions in check To help fight the faker in yourself, I'll offer the following suggestion Always have a sincere response to the question What would it take for me to believe in the realm of religion? For example, what would it take for you to believe that Joseph Smith was a prophet? And what would it take for you to believe that the Dalai Lama reincarnates and What would it take for you to believe as Scientologists do that we're thinkings trapped in human bodies in The realm of pseudoscience. It's much easier What it would take for me to believe is that if someone passed the James Randy million dollar challenge If someone did pass a challenge and actually we'll find out in a couple of hours if they do And I actually sincerely hope that someone does because then we can use that to move our Understanding of that supernatural phenomenon we can apply the tools of science to study that But that's what it would take for me to change my mind. That's what it would take for me to believe an External benefit of belief revision is that it's a modeling strategy that can help those who are trapped by pathological beliefs Many religious fundamentalists are forthright and speak truth in the face of danger But they are inauthentic because they lack the willingness to revise their beliefs When those who don't share our skeptical values see that we are open to revising our beliefs and that we Appreciate being shown reasoning errors in our thinking errors in our reasoning It makes it much easier for them to change their beliefs They'll become less threatened less likely to adopt the defensive posture and more likely to reconsider If we're not willing to revise our beliefs The floodgates are open to believe what we want to believe as opposed to where the evidence points If we don't hold belief revision is a core value or if we veer from it everything will fall apart We'll treat the value of authenticity for something we want to believe Will become victims of ideology will become fakes for example Many on the left like American journalist Glenn Greenwald are unwilling to admit that beliefs have consequences in terms of behavior Specifically that Muslim extremists are actually committing certain atrocities for very specific religious reasons Greenwald is unshakable in his conviction that these actions are the consequences of US foreign policy even after a suicide bombers Explicit admission that he was motivated by passages from the Quran many on the left mostly those in academia Will say things like well He didn't really mean that or it's simply not the case that religion had anything to do with it or You're a bigot If we can't be honest about the danger of religious extremism for example We won't even be able to address the problem. Let alone solve it and The first step to solving any problem is to be honest about it Similarly if the debate is framed in such a way that an entire group of people is placed outside the bounds of civilized society Then it becomes prejudiced and extremism That's exactly how many Fox News commentators and American activists like Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller frame their arguments Spencer and Geller have written entire books Turning their eye or upon Muslims and using the language of Western liberalism like free speech hate speech Inequality to smear an entire group of people. They don't just attack ideas. They attack people This is dishonest disingenuous and hateful The easiest person to fool is yourself Being willing to revise your beliefs helps you privilege reality over ideology and not cherry-pick what you want to believe belief revision helps prevent us from becoming fakers by honestly Considering the evidence wherever that may lead If you're willing to revise your beliefs, you won't have to go through lifeline Which is difficult and burdensome? You can have healthy relationships and relationships that work because they're not based on deceit You won't have to struggle to figure out what your friends mean. You won't even have to struggle to figure out what you mean You'll be able to solve problems. You'll be able to identify dangers. You won't be a fraud a phony a faker If you're genuinely willing to revise your beliefs You don't use people or get used people in a way that you've conspired to create you're less likely to be an asshole Authenticity is a way to treat yourself well Authenticity is a way to treat others well Authenticity honesty sincerity being yourself and speaking clearly there are ways to cut through the noise There are ways to keep it real and there are also ways to help us as a movement avoid dogma gurus politics financial interests and everything else that typically corrupts movements Authenticity is an indispensable safeguard in the Gorgias Socrates says that it's better to be refuted than it is to refute for Socrates being refuted Learning and thus casting off our certainty and dogmatism is virtuous As long as we hold belief revision as a value will be less likely to fall into dogmatism Ideology and arrogance will be less likely to become fakes Before I conclude I'd like to offer three specific suggestions for speaking and living more authentically If someone asked you a question and you don't know the answer say I Don't know for example if somebody asked you about what came before the big bang or chelation therapy The effects of that and you don't know just say hey, I don't know Don't pretend to know things you don't know Be honest readily admit your ignorance if you don't know say I don't know don't be a fake Don't apologize or mumble in the defense of reason don't turn it down a talk baby talk Apologize for something you said only if you're genuinely sorry Not because it hurt someone's feelings or because it offended someone or because you were subjected to personal criticism Or because you were bullied Consider Ron Lindsay's apology for his opening marks remarks at the women in secularism to conference now I've never met Ron. I don't even know Ron and everybody's spoken to him But if he was sincere, he did the right thing by apologizing But if he meant his remarks, then he should not have apologized Be direct be sincere. Say what you mean be forthright Don't speak in obfuscated terms because you're too afraid to say what you think don't equivocate Don't sugarcoat. Don't put on a front. Don't be a fake And unless you're a physicist specifically talking about the realm of the very very very small in the context Of physics do not use the word quantum Quantum healing quantum consciousness quantum spirituality quantum understanding quantum life force quantum actions quantum karma Quantum subjectivity quantum infinity. No masterfaker and new age guru Deepak Chopra Uses the word quantum to justify his own lucrative nonsense It's a it's a scientific word. That's been misappropriated and used to make the speaker sound intelligent Using the word quantum is a way to obfuscate If you speak clearly others will know what you mean and you'll know what you mean Speaking in unclear language is a type of self-deception and fakery It can help you hide from the fact that you don't understand or even believe what you're saying This is particularly true in the age of the internet young people will not respond to unclear language Being candid and direct is the best way to get our message across I'm specifically thinking about Penn Gillette. I think he serves as a model for that Finally be wary of labels They make it hard to revise your beliefs There are no religious people or non-religious people atheism plus or non atheism plus people These are alienating specious distinctions. There are only people some of whom have dangerous ideas some do not My friend Matt Thornton a reason activist said to me we fear honest blunt dialogue But what we ought to fear are dangerous ideas because while blunt and honest dialogue may be offensive to some Dangerous ideas can be fatal to all of us Reason and rationality have endurance they don't evaporate the moment you get slugged and you will get slugged Look around you at this conference at the people in this hall tonight The people in this room are whole if all of us be clearly and sincerely and are genuinely willing to revise our beliefs We can solve the problems we face we can solve our shared problems fighting the fakers starts with Authenticity fighting the fakers starts with you. Thank you Yes, yes


The leader of the indigenous people of Biafra, Namdi Kanu, has dragged the federal government to the Court of Appeal to challenge the amended seven charges on terrorism granted by Justice Binta Nyako of the Federal High Court in Abuja. He was challenging the decision of the court, as contained in the ruling and final decision, retaining count one, two, three, four, five, eight and fifteen of the amended charge delivered on April the 8th, while Justice Nyako struck out count six, seven, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen and fourteen of the charge. Sheokate Kanu's trial on counts one, two, three, four, five, eight and fifteen.


Bad decisions can lead to dramatic consequences when alcohol or drugs are involved. That's why Siganella's DAPA team is putting the drama first through a skit illustrating how fast one decision can change everything. Petty Officer Sunderland takes us to the scene. As Naval Air Station Siganella prepares to celebrate the holiday season, its team of drug and alcohol prevention advisors show the community the importance of having a plan through a dramatization. Machinist mate First Class Alex Lang explains the inspiration for the training. Our obligation is to educate and try to prevent from DUI's alcohol-related incidents. With this interactive training, we've from past experiences seen that this is working. The team, along with volunteers from the community, acted out a night of partying, demonstrating how quickly one bad decision can end your career and affect others. Reporting from Naval Air Station Siganella, I'm Petty Officer Rebecca Sunderland.


and to go Kyrie Irving, met the media. Kyrie, number one, acknowledging that Boston is a good team. But from the net side of things, what do you feel is most frustrating about not being able to get over this hump or figure them out thus far? I think the frustrating part is just the intangibles out there that we can control, meaning just the turnovers and the offensive rebounds. I think for the last three games, you can see we've given a lot of easy baskets in transition. And though they're a good defensive team, they've proven. I feel like sometimes we just put in their lap and they go the other way and they get in transition. And they make big time plays. So I got to give them credit. They make it tough in the half court for us to run plays. But I felt like in the first half, we did some good things. And in the last two games before this, we felt like we did some good things. But tonight, it just wasn't enough. Obviously, the stats not on your side as far as teams down 0-3. But as a competitive veteran group, what do you say to each other? What's the communication like as you turn your attention to game four? There's not much to say. I mean, we know what it is. I think a few of us in this locker room have either been in this position on the winning side or on the losing side. So you just got to take your lessons, learn what you can from this, and just get ready for Monday. No time to hold your head, no time to think about what everyone else is saying. It's just, let's go play basketball. Gary, you were on that Cavs team that was down 3-1 and came back. What do you take from that experience that allows you to maybe? Different situation, brother. Different situation. Being down 3-1 in the finals, that's a totally different situation than compared to what we're into right now. I don't even want to compare it just out of respect for what that was for the teammates I had in the journey. And we have our guys in our locker room, my brother's there, and this is something that's new for us as a group. And I can individually say, I did this, I did that, but it's a team game. And all I could do is show up tomorrow, be ready for film, and get ready for Monday's game. Kari, Steve Nass was just in here. And he said, you and Kevin have to be tired just because, based on how hard you guys had to play towards the end of the season, how many minutes. And he also mentioned you fasting might be a contributing factor. I mean, how do you feel? Is that making you tired? How do your legs feel? My legs feel OK. I think kind of in the flow of everything right now, I mean, just into the season, then also fasting, and just trying to find a balance there, those are things that attribute to my day to day. But when I show up to the facility or the arena, there are no excuses that I have for me being ready and prepared. I do everything I can to be able to make sure that I'm spiritually grounded. And I'm respecting my faith, but also knowing that when I step into this building, I don't want any excuses on my name. I just told everybody that's a journey with God that I respect. But in terms of my play and stuff like that, it just got to do better. It just got to do better. Don't want to sit up here and be like, hey, this or that. Just got to do better.


Let's jump in.  Who cares about the election? The lead story is Paul Krugman. So, Paul Krugman this morning published an editorial titled, as is the editorial in the New York Times, of course, the esteemed paper of record. How many Americans will Ein Rand kill? How many Americans will Ein Rand kill? An idea here is that the editorial goes on to say that it's Ein Rand like individualism. Ein Rand like selfishness, which is responsible for all the deaths in COVID and is going to be responsible for the deaths to come from COVID. In other words, it's the laissez-faire approach, the Ein Rand approach, the selfish approach, which is preventing people from doing the one thing that would save us all, of course, which is to wear masks, according to Paul Krugman, is preventing a mandate, a mask mandate, too much Ein Rand individualism. And it's a consequence of the, you know, people are gonna die because it's Ein Rand-like individualism on the right by Donald Trump, by Republicans and by individuals, which is causing people to be, to gather together without wearing masks and not take into account social distancing, to ignore science, to reject lockdowns, the whole mish-mash, everything you wanna throw at, right? Everything you wanna throw at the left claims that, you know, the left claims of problems with the response to the pandemic. Krugman is blaming on Ein Rand and blaming on individualism, blaming on egoism, blaming on laissez-faire, on capitalism. He doesn't use capitalism, but that's the implication that, you know, and of course, what he associates that with, and I'll get back to this point later, is he associates Donald Trump with this Ein Rand view and we'll get to the problems with that and actually a tweet that he did later on afterwards regarding that, that I think is important. Now this is clearly dishonest, really pathetic, shows a complete ignorance of Rand and who ideas and what you stood for. Rand ignoring science. Rand was the preeminent defender, philosophical defender of science in the 20th century. Rand's individualism, Rand's egoism does not, not, not mean uncaring about other people's lives, behaving in ways that place other people's lives in danger. I mean, quite the contrary. Rand viewed, Rand viewed first, egoism is caring about yourself and your own happiness, but caring about yourself and your own happiness doesn't quite the opposite, make you not care about other people, make you not care about what you inflict on other people. It is a bizarre notion that that would be Ein Rand's idea.  You're an egoist, other people will get the virus. Why should you care about other people? But more than that, Ein Rand specifically said that this was within the realm of the rule of government. To prevent you from doing so once you test positive. That is, if you have a contagious disease, then it is the government's proper rule to isolate you, to prevent you from going out there. And being and becoming a risk to other people. So it is a complete lie, distortion of Rand's views. Talk about this, and Rand and the Ein Rand Institute and I have laid out clear, clear alternatives to both what Donald Trump has done and to what the left has done in terms of actually dealing with the pandemic and dealing with it based on science, based on reason and based on the limited role of government to protect our rights. But Corbyn ignores all that. Truth doesn't matter to him, facts don't matter to him. What Ein Rand actually said doesn't matter to him. What matters to him only, the hack that he is, is to distort, to pervert, to make those he disagree with look as bad as possible. Now this is not the first time he has mentioned Ein Rand. Indeed, he has mentioned Ein Rand many, many, many times over the years. It seems like a pet thing for Paul Krugman to do, is to mention Ein Rand at every opportunity possible. You get a sense that Krugman actually cares about Ein Rand. Why would he mention her so often if he didn't? And I think with Krugman it's clear. Krugman is smart. We'll get to my analysis of Krugman in a minute beyond this op-ed. But Krugman is smart. And Krugman is experienced, he's been around. He's done debates, he's gone up against all kinds of people. He knows what the right, in terms of what the right's opposition to his views is. Fundamentally he knows, I've no doubt in my mind that he knows, that the only real opposition his fundamental beliefs have, his altruism, his collectivism, his indeed evasion of reality have, is Ein Rand. Indeed there's nobody else out there who represents a real challenge, not to Paul Krugman, the economist who BS's all the time, but to Paul Krugman, the public intellectual. There is no opposition other than an opposition based on Rand, because only she can challenge his altruism. Only she can challenge his collectivism. Only she can challenge ultimately his form of mysticism. So Paul repeatedly attacks, repeatedly brings her up, whenever he wants to attack anybody. Whenever he wants to attack the right, he attacks Ein Rand because he knows that on the right, the only person worthy, the only person who actually presents a challenge to his set of beliefs is Ein Rand. Everybody else's at the fundamental level agrees with him.  Ein Rand doesn't promote any of that. Indeed, she opposes mandatory mask wearing, she would oppose mandatory mask wearing, and she would oppose lockdowns as we have from the beginning. But that's not because she's anti-science. It's because she's pro-science. And she would not oppose wearing masks in the right context, in the right place where a mask might help.  It doesn't protect you so much so she would be opposed to it. I mean, he implies that. Really? It's getting Ein Rand wrong. But because of the science, because of the mask wearing, because of the science, would advocate for the kind of policies that nobody did in the United States of America or in Europe for that matter. Nobody. There's not a model in the Western world for what needed to be done. The model for what needed to be done is in the East. It's in Taiwan. But Paul Krugman thinks that government is the solution to COVID. When government has proven completely and utterly incompetent in the United States in dealing with COVID.  And the governors have been complete and utter disasters and failures when it comes to COVID, particularly when you take into account the economic effects of what they did. The solution is what Taiwan did where you saw actual leadership, where you saw actual science-based plan, where you actually saw a science-based plan executed well, and you got very few cases, almost no deaths, and no shutdown of the economy and almost no economic consequences directly from COVID. Sweden didn't do the right thing. Sweden did the right thing in some aspects and blew it in other aspects. That's why Sweden had relatively high death rates as compared to its Scandinavian neighbors. And it got a hit economically, not as bad as the United States and the UK, but worse than Taiwan. The model for the way to deal with this is, was, the Taiwanese. I mean, Sweden's doing okay right now, but they suffered a lot of deaths and they suffered a lot of deaths because they didn't do what Taiwan did. And we didn't do what Taiwan did. Nobody in the West did what Taiwan did, which is test, test, test, isolate people who have their virus, test, trace, isolate. I mean, saying this from February, test, trace, isolate. And if you do that early, if you do that aggressively, if you do that on scale, you don't need anything else. Masks are probably sub-profilers, although it probably makes sense to wear a mask in crowded areas and elevators and offices in places like that for a while. But if we had in February ramped up testing, if we had in February taken this seriously, if we had in February done what Taiwan had done, this would be all over, this would be gone. But no, we meandered, we couldn't make a decision, we couldn't come up with a strategy, we screwed it up at every single level.  You start with a federal government failure, and then you get on top of that, state-level failures, one on top of the other, and there's no end to it, and it's still going on. It's still going on, numbers are increasing, we'll see what happened to death rates. Death rates have not increased anywhere near, but hospitalization rates are high. Luckily, not luckily, because of our great, of this country's great biotech industry, because of amazing doctors and nurses, because of healthcare professionals, we now are better, much better at treating COVID. So, yes, death rates are gonna be a lot lower, but the 200,000 dead, that's on the federal government, that's on Trump, that's on Como, that's on Newsom, that's on these guys, that's in our political class, that's, and I include Trump in our political class, that's in our government, but what, Paul Krugman want is more central planning. What Krugman wants is more of the same nonsense. Yeah, I mean, JDS writes from New Zealand, he writes that Taiwan had significantly less cases than New Zealand. New Zealand had one of the strictest lockdowns in the world, that's right, and they're both islands, and I don't know if they have similar populations, I think Taiwan has a bigger population than New Zealand. And yet, Taiwan executed, it executed. It did what was necessary. Test, trace, isolate, not that hard, guys. And that's what Sweden, by the way, didn't do. And because Sweden didn't do that, they had death rates that were unnecessary, they had large numbers of cases unnecessarily. I'm glad they didn't lock down, but what the government didn't do is they didn't properly test, particularly in nursing homes, a lot of elderly died in Sweden. Sweden is not this massive success story. Taiwan, even South Korea, are far, far better. The best cases are all in Asia. Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, those are the best cases in terms of response to COVID. All right, back to Krugman. No, he blames Iran, he blames individualism, he blames egoism. Not even thinking or caring that Iran actually wrote about this, that Iran actually has an opinion about this. Now, yeah, I'm gonna get to that, Jonathan. I saw that already. Now, this morning, when this came out, people started going after New York Times. And the Iran Institute launched on Twitter. We sent a letter to the editor. We communicated, we tweeted Krugman. We put out two videos about this. One of them I mentioned speaking about the proper government response to pandemics. The other one, Ilan Juno and Ankar Ghatte talking about the Krugman piece. It all went, we got a lot of stuff up and online. Challenging Krugman. So first, Krugman, Tara Smith wrote an email to Paul Krugman. And the first thing was that Paul Krugman responded by tweeting the following, tweeting the following. I'm getting some mail from people insisting that Iran had a more complicated than the caricature, right? Was more complicated than the caricature, right? So opinion was more complicated. Maybe, he says, but it doesn't matter, right? Facts don't matter. Reality doesn't matter. What she actually held doesn't matter. It's the rights idea of Rand that is killing thousands. Wow. So I'm gonna smear Rand because these people over here might have a false view of her. That's just disgusting for a human being to have that kind of view. It doesn't matter what Rand actually said. It doesn't matter what a philosophy actually advocates. It doesn't matter what even her philosophy students, people studying on Rand think.  I'm gonna use that as the standard. Who cares about the truth? Well, Rand does. I mean, that's what the philosophy is about. It's about the truth, discovering the truth, seeking the truth in everything, including in this pandemic, figuring out what's right and wrong. Krugman doesn't care about the truth. So that was the first indication. I wanna get about this Rand and the right in a minute. So then we continued sending out material, tweeting and so on. And about an hour ago, the New York Times actually changed the title of the piece. They took Ein Rand's name out. They took Ein Rand's name out of the title. And they basically blame it on libertarianism. Now, Ein Rand is still in the text. They haven't taken that out. And just to read you the paragraph that has on Rand, Donald Trump's disastrous leadership is, of course, an important factor. But I also blame Ein Rand. Or more generally, libertarianism gone bad. So now the title of the piece is libertarianism gone bad. A misunderstanding of what freedom is all about. No. Ein Rand understood exactly what freedom is about. Ein Rand understood that freedom is not about violating the rights of your neighbor. It's not about putting your neighbor at unnecessary risk because of your subjective desires. Ein Rand understood exactly what freedom is about. You are attributing ideas to Ein Rand that are not true. And what's shocking is you don't care. You, Paul Krugman, don't care. Truth doesn't matter to you. The only thing that matters to you is, I guess, your subjective opinion. And using Ein Rand's name in order to track more readers. Using Ein Rand's name as a doll, you can push your pins in in a voodoo ceremony.  Don't know why I expected anything better from Paul Krugman, but still. Just acknowledge you were wrong. What we need today, what I call the new intellectual, would be any man or woman who is willing to think. Meaning, any man or woman who knows that man's life must be guided by reason, by the intellect, not by feelings, wishes, whims, or mystic revelations. Any man or woman who values his life and who does not want to give in to today's cult of despair, cynicism, and impotence and does not intend to give up the world to the dark ages and to the role of the collectivist, brutes. All right, before we go on, reminder, please like the show. We've got 163 live listeners right now, 30 likes. That should be at least 100. I figure at least 100 of you actually like the show. Maybe they're like 60 of the Matthews out there who hate it, but at least the people who are liking it, I want to see a thumbs up, there you go. Start liking it, I want to see that go to 100. All it takes is a click of a thing, whether you're looking at this, and you know the likes matter. It's not an issue of my ego, it's an issue of the algorithm. The more you like something, the more the algorithm likes it. So if you don't like the show, give it a thumbs down. Let's see your actual views being reflected in the likes, but if you like it, don't just sit there, help get the show promoted. Of course, you should also share, and you can support the show at yourunbrookshow.com slash support on Patreon or Subscribestar or locals, and show your support for the work, for the value, hopefully you're receiving from this. And of course, don't forget, if you're not a subscriber, even if you just come here to troll, or even if you're here like Matthew to defend Marks, then you should subscribe, because that way you'll know when to show up, you'll know what shows are on, when they're on. You'll get notified, right? So yes, like, share, subscribe, support. Like, share, subscribe, support. There you go. Easy. Do one or all of those, please.


I feel like every day I hear another story about another doctor, young doctor, physician in their 40s or 50s who's admitted to the hospital with COVID-19 positive, despite the protective measures they're taking, admitted to the ICU, and even there's been deaths, all right? There's deaths of young people. And I feel like disproportionately it happens to be physicians, cardiologists, ICU doctors, et cetera, who are the ones out on the front lines. What is going on here? So I'm sure you have heard from various news stories about healthcare workers across the United States that are pleading for protection, for protection for ourselves while we're out there taking care of this disease, COVID-19, from the SARS-CoV-2 virus out on the front lines. Why? Because a lot of us don't really feel we're adequately protected. Now, the problem is nobody really understands everything about this virus. It's a novel virus, right? So it's new and it's aggressive. It's caused a pandemic super fast across the world. So anybody who thinks they know exactly how to prevent the transmission of this is incorrect because the reality is we don't know. Even the CDC website is vague in the absolute ways on how to practice PPE or personal protective equipment. That's the mask and the gowns that we wear. When to use these N95 respirator masks which block those airborne particles from being inhaled, okay? We know that this coronavirus, COVID-19, can be airborne in certain situations but do we know exactly when, how and always? My argument is we don't. Now in the United States there's a lot of different avenues hospitals have taken in terms of what their policies are for protecting healthcare workers. So there's sort of two different camps at this point.  Which is wise. I mean, why not play it safe? Better safe than sorry, right? Look what's going on in Italy, all right? This is a way that we can prevent people from inadvertently touching their face after the touch the surface that may be infected from maybe acquiring a droplet or transmitting droplets and it is probably the safest way to practice at this point in time with the information that we have in my opinion. These same hospitals, some of them at least are also saying that COVID-19 positive rooms you should be wearing an N95 respirator mask. Even though this virus is thought to be primarily a droplet transmitting disease, like I said, we don't know 100% when this thing becomes airborne. We think we can predict that such as intubation cases and aerosolized procedures, but I don't think we know for sure. Now there's some hospitals that are saying that nobody's allowed to wear a mask, a surgical mask when you're walking around the hospital. That's a little crazy, isn't it? To the point if you're wearing a surgical mask walking around the hospital some of these institutions will reprimand you.  That's ludicrous. They're just trying to protect themselves as healthcare personnel in this arena of uncertainty and fear. And now they're being reprimanded for that. Why? Because most of the comments I get on my Instagram is because the administration fears that it's gonna make patients and visitors worried and scared. It's gonna make the virus look worse than it really is. Guess what? It is that bad. And it's going to cause anxiety to other people not wearing masks. I mean, look what happens during the flu season, right? In the flu season, if you don't get a flu vaccine for one reason or another maybe you're allergic or whatever, you have to wear a mask, all right? They're mandating you to wear a mask. In this situation, this COVID-19 virus which is way worse than the flu, more contagious, they're saying you cannot wear a mask. Does that make any sense to anybody? Cause it doesn't make sense to me. Let's take a quick look what happened abroad. Look at China. In China, in Wuhan, China where this thing broke out, initially up to 40% of these infections were hospital acquired, almost all of them to healthcare personnel. Doctors, nurses and people who work in the hospital. And this is after they've been practicing droplet precautions, right? Droplet precautions again means regular surgical masks, gloves, gown, et cetera, and the proper, you know, sequence and technique. Now, after they brought in the outside physicians, they put everybody into these hazmat suits and PAPR hoods. These PAPR hoods are the ones you see with the plastic shield and the full-on hood to protect themselves from anything airborne, droplet, et cetera. After that, there was zero, zero hospital acquired infections. Let's take a look at Singapore. And this was discussed by Atul Gawande in his New Yorker article. If you haven't seen that, I highly recommend you read it. I'll link it below. And in Singapore, they flat their curve really quick and they had zero, almost zero to my understanding, hospital acquired infections by healthcare workers. What do they do? Well, aside from aggressive hand washing, cleaning all the surfaces with disinfecting in between every encounter, they utilize surgical masks for every encounter and while they're in the hospital, all right? And every COVID-19 positive or suspected patient they utilize in N95, all right? So they were aggressive and they got the job done. In addition to all the social distancing that we're also doing here. So why can't we follow the lead from what we're seeing over there, over here? And now we have healthcare workers being told you can't even wear a surgical mask. You can't use your own N95 when you go into COVID-19 room because that's what the hospital suits are saying. Whereas we're seeing what's going on in China, the experts of this, wearing these full-papper hoods. I don't understand it. Again, we're just trying to keep ourselves protected so we can take care of these patients. My stance is we got to keep ourselves protected. I understand there's a shortage, a shortage of N95s, but again, we can reuse these up to five times. And frankly, I'd rather use an N95 a six-time with a surgical mask on top of it rather than risk myself from an infection by downgrading my mask if I think the risk is there. So again, this is my personal opinion. I obviously nobody really knows what they're doing because the policies for hospitals are all around the map from one end to the complete opposite end. The CDC, I don't think knows what they're doing either. So why not keep ourselves as protected as possible? Because I don't want more 40-year-old doctors, 50-year-old doctors getting a minute to mimic you, even dying because they weren't adequately protected because we don't understand this enough.  Because we're the ones who are trying to protect everybody else.


So I pulled a couple of clips from Kirsten Gillibrand's Town Hall and CNN because I think that she Is someone to look out for and I know that she isn't necessarily pulling too well just yet But I think that what she demonstrated over the course of this town hall is that she is incredibly slick I think she's extremely charismatic and she reminds me of Hillary Clinton if Hillary Clinton was more strategically savvy and Didn't piss people off every single time she opened her mouth by saying something smug or elitist because what Kirsten Gillibrand does is She says something that makes Progressives feel satisfied with her answer, but she's saying this all while remaining firmly in the camp of Corporate America now let me Explain what I mean by that so recently a pharmaceutical executive named Sally Sussman hosted a fundraiser for Kirsten Gillibrand so in my view That's something that I deem disqualifying after you've done a Fundraiser a private fundraiser a multi-thousand dollar fundraiser with a big pharma executive what little interest I already had in you advantages and I think she knows that that pissed off a lot of people so she was asked about this Surprisingly to CNN's credit at her town hall and the answer that she gave Was really really interesting to me because even if she still defends her decision to have a fundraiser the policy solution that she proposes is So good that I think that she may actually be able to distract people from the fact that She did something that was overly corrupt in the first place I know that you speak very passionately about supporting Medicare for all But you also have a long history of taking a campaign and lobbying money from pharmaceutical companies A lot of whom manufactured drugs at prices that I could not afford without insurance Are you committed to questioning your contradiction and supporting Medicare for all while remaining close to drug companies? How exactly do you plan to reform these practices and can we expect to see the change reflected in your Senate votes? And if you're president well, I my voting record I stand up to the drug companies I've sponsored legislation to stand up to the drug companies and I'm not beholden to donors It's why I'm in favor of publicly funded elections. It's also why I don't take corporate PAC money It's why I don't take federal lobbyist money, and it's why I don't want to have an individual super PAC I believe if you want to restore this democracy into your hands, you're gonna have to get money out of politics You're actually gonna have to fight for publicly funded elections So I'm not beholden to any industries and my voting record proves it So given the optics of being too cozy with pharmaceuticals and the point that scout was making Why did you allow a Pfizer vice president to host a fundraiser? She's my friend and I've known her for lots of years and she supports my positions on LGBTQ equality And she supports my positions on women's rights and women's empowerment So, you know individuals will support you for all sorts of reasons and you don't want to undermine an individual's right to participate But it's one of the reasons because you've made that assumption it's one of the reasons why we need to get money out of politics because it Corrodes people's belief that our democracy is strong.  So you can't identify the problem and still participate You have to practice what you preach.  It's it's a great way to dodge, you know, this issue It's it's a great way to kind of distract you from the core issue that I think plagues her overall campaign But it's lazy. It's absolutely sleazy now on the note of health care and big pharma She was asked about whether or not she would support the abolition of private insurance companies now The person kind of worded this in a way that may be misleading because I don't think Bernie Sanders is Explicitly saying that we ban private health insurance companies He's just saying we should construct a Medicare for all plan That's so good that they would go out of business because nobody would need private insurance We fill all the gaps with our Medicare for all system that makes those private health companies Unnecessary and hopefully non-existent. So, you know, besides the framing which I think is a little bit problematic Here's what she says overall and what she says is very unclear with regard to her stance on Medicare for all Hi, Senator Gillibrand. Yeah, my name is Comron I have two heart conditions and a spine condition that have required me to get life altering surgeries throughout my childhood and If my family wasn't able to afford those surgeries if my family couldn't pay for a pacemaker and two steel rods in my back Yeah, I wouldn't be alive today. So would you abolish the private insurance industry that has taken advantage of people like me? Well, first of all, thank you for being so brave and thank you for sharing your story with all of us It's bravery of yours that inspires me to work harder every day to take on the insurance companies to make sure health care Is a right and not a privilege That's why I am for Medicare for all and I believe that the best way to get there is let people buy in and that was how We get to single-payer over a very short transition period I Think part of the corruption and greed in Washington is the insurance industry as the middleman for health care Because they don't necessarily care about which surgeries you need or which medicine you need or how many days in the hospitals You need ultimately they're for-profit companies and they have to care about their bottom line and their shareholders And I think that's the misalignment in health care today I don't think you can actually get to universal coverage unless you have a not-for-profit public option That is focused solely on human health Would you be able to say though that an option that you support would be able To get him everything that he needs without his family paying a dollar extra with no wait time and no Okay well pacemakers aren't included or something like that you should ask anyone in America who has access to Medicare It covers the things you need certainly covers the medications It kind of covers the surgeries the hospital stays everything you need And I think if people bought in at a price they could afford like 4% of income That would work and if you match it with your employer and you had a choice over the way we wrote Senator Sanders's bill I got to write the transition piece or work on that piece. We had a buy-in over four years I think most Americans if you do your number crunching in your own head 4% of your income Yeah, it's probably less than you're paying now and people will choose it I would choose it in a New York minute and I think if you got to if you got to Medicare for all What you're gonna do is have economies of scale, which will bend the cost curve You'll have all Americans have access to preventive care Which bends the cost curve and then you need to actually get some costs out by ending fee for service Making sure our doctors can work on a continuum of care model like they have at the Mayo Clinic, right? And And make sure that you get the price of Pharmaceuticals down that means taking on the drug companies So I do want to talk to you about that because we have a question about pharmaceutical prices The Medicare today back to greed and corruption The reason why Medicare patients don't have the lowest cost for drugs is because under George W. Bush They negotiated in the dead of night to make sure that drug manufacturers would never have to negotiate in bulk with Medicare So first of all, it's important to note that she did not answer his question She did not unequivocally say that I'd support getting rid of the private health insurance companies We're not expecting her to say we're gonna pass a law making them illegal We're just saying that you're going we want you to commit to a bill that would make them unnecessary And therefore go out of business because your Medicare for all plan is so strong. She didn't answer the core question Now additionally if you'll notice she talked about a Medicare buy-in as a way to get to Medicare for all But the problem is that you don't need to establish that unnecessary Step in between our for-profit system and Medicare for all you can just go directly from our current system To Medicare for all but I don't know if she's saying that a Medicare buy-in would just be established once we pass Medicare for all and simply serve as a Transitionary necessity You know once we pass Medicare for all and until we get to there I think that it feels anyway like she's being Intentionally unclear because I think she's trying to leave herself room for plausible deniability So if she's ever elected and she doesn't do Medicare for all and she gives us a public option then She can say I never fully committed to Medicare for all. I supported Bernie's bill. I co-sponsored it But at the same time I also co-sponsored other half measures. I said I supported a public option So I didn't lie. It's not it's not a lie technically. I'm not going back on my campaign promise I'm doing what I said I was going to do It seems like that's the case but also she's leaving Room for interpretation that she actually does support Medicare for all and she only supports Medicare buy-in as a means of establishing that as a necessity during the transition process But when you hear someone like Pete Buddha just talk about Medicare for everyone who wants it He just says you know Or he implies certainly that Medicare for all is more of a long-term ideal But now we should just do a Medicare buy-in now I don't know if she's saying that so she needs to be clear But I think that this room for interpretation is really it's it's a tactic, right? She's trying to be purposefully vague to Give herself enough room to make you think she supports Medicare for all But also allow her to weasel out of it if she doesn't pass it if she's elected and again because of her relationship with Pharmaceutical executives like Sally Sussman my default position with respect to Kirsten Gillibrand is always to be Overly skeptical of every single thing that she says because if you're friends with someone who has a vested interest in Maintaining the for-profit status quo that we currently have I can't trust you I have to be skeptical of you because I'd be a moron and I'd be really naive to not be skeptical of what you're saying So overall she is someone who is clearly Politically astute she is Strategically savvy perhaps more so than a lot of her colleagues more so than better or work certainly more so than Pete Buddha judge But she's one to watch because she talks in a way that allows her to firmly Keep her feet rooted in two different camps the establishment corporate wing of the party and the progressive wing and She'll adopt really bold policy proposals while simultaneously probably behind closed doors Promising her donors something else so I don't trust her one bit and if you're gonna do fundraisers then I don't think it's Irrational or unreasonable for us to question your loyalty and if you're serious about Medicare for all because we've been fucked over How many times now rock Obama said he supports a public option? He didn't even push for it So we've been screwed over in the post Obama era of Democratic Party politics We're not going to interpret anything a politician says charitably We're going to expect you by default to betray us and it's your job to prove to us that that's not the case And in my opinion, she hasn't done that. It's clear. She is another bullshitter and I don't trust her. Sorry Stop doing fundraisers with big pharma executives I don't care how lovely a person Sally Sussman may be personally. I don't care that she Supports LGBTQ rights.  You're not a good person and to be friends with them to want to be friends with the shitty person like that Um, I just I'm sorry.  So don't hit the subscribe button, okay? And whatever you do folks do not hit the notification bell either Mike treats me so unfairly


Hey everybody, welcome back. Let's talk about small businesses, in particular, why most businesses fail. If you're a small business owner, you've got to listen to these reasons. Or if you plan to start your own business sooner or later, you need to know these stuff actually to minimize the risks and failures in the market.  But the fact is harsh and the failure rate is very high. Each industry has a different failure rate. But in general, about 50% of the businesses fail within the second year. After studying new businesses and market barriers for new businesses, I have found five most common reasons that failed the businesses. But before I start, I just request you to hit that like button and subscribe to my channel so that you can watch my new videos. And if you have any plan to start a business, please comment below what are the most difficult parts of starting a business. I will try to reach you out. Oh guys, let's jump into the video. Reason number one, the entrepreneurs do not realize that there is actually no market for their new product or service. Before launching the product or service, you need to make sure and do a deep market research that there is a valid market need before you try to start selling something. Number two, most failed businesses started with insufficient fan so that the new business quickly run out of money. It's okay to start with little to no capital if you follow the right strategies. If not, you will fail, which is one of the main reasons for many entrepreneurs. Number three, the new products or services provided by the new business offer no clear advantage over what already exists in the market. If you want to start a business, focus on how your products or services are solving a problem. You need to be different, at least be different. You might heard the expression, different is better than better. And number four, expanding too quickly. Growth is a wonderful thing, but not when it gets out of hand. Can't be managed effectively guys. Instead, wait and slowly grow.  And number five, lack of the right people in your team. I felt in one of my businesses in 2017, only because of the wrong people in my team. Most of the time you see dishonesty in a team and some partners are not really agreeing with your decisions. And then you lose focus and customer complaints rise, quality declines, and there are many other problems that are rising. A strong and united team who work for a single purpose to grow the business can grow much faster. There are many uncertain external factors that small businesses fail, like fast technological advances that leaves you behind. Our competitors take unexpected action. Our customers taste change, but in common. These five reasons are the main reasons why most small businesses fail. I'm in South Korea and if you're interested to do business in Korea or expand your business to Korea, please comment below. And in case there is a specific question, please email me and avoid contacting his commerce to WhatsApp numbers that they are posting in the comments. That's not me guys. And also please click the notification bell and subscribe to my channel. If it's your first time watching my videos, if it's not, if it's the second time, third time. So you smash that like button and I will see you in the next video. Thanks and have a good day.