The radical fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest and individual rights. This is the Iran Brook Show. All right everybody, welcome to Iran Brook Show on this Saturday afternoon. I hope everybody's having a fantastic weekend. You're watching some soccer hopefully and enjoying yourself. A disappointing game yesterday between England and the U.S. Like boring and nothing happened. Yeah, not very interesting. France, Denmark was a little bit better. France winning 2-1. And of course right now there's somebody who's complaining. Who was complaining earlier? Mr. Muffin said, Iran, you're picking World Cup games times. Yeah. And you guys get to watch them while you're listening to the Iran Brook Show. So I'm the one who's sacrificing for the sake of the Iran Brook Show and for your sake. I'm the one missing the Argentina-Mexico game right now. So fill me in. Keep me updated. Let me know what the score is. Don't worry about any spoilers. I'm probably not going to watch the game unless we end early and I go catch the kind of late part of it. So let me know how it goes. All right. Let's see. Today we're talking on a big topic. It's a complicated topic. It should be fun though. We're going to talk about China. Really the focus is China. From the perspective, two perspectives really. And I think we want to include in this an analysis of the possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan. From the perspective of really two things. And that is chips, semiconductors, and COVID. Because I think both have a really crucial role to play in any Chinese calculations and in Chinese future as geopolitical power, particularly on the military and economic side. So I think it's going to be, I think this should be really interesting. I'm kind of working this through myself, thinking this through so these are not last thoughts. This is not necessarily going to be definitive of all time. But I do think there's some interesting things going on. I do want to invite the China expert Scott McDonald on the show sometime soon. See what he thinks about all this. I'm curious how he approaches it. He's an objectivist who's an expert on China. But I'm going to give you my thoughts today. And let me add to that. Thank you, Jeff. Thanks for the super chat. Michael has already got us going with 50 bucks. But we'll get to that question much later because I've got a lot to say before we get to the Q&A. What did I want to say? I wanted to say yes. So a lot of these thoughts stimulated by the reading of this book that I've already recommended to you a number of times. But I'm going to keep recommending it to you because I really do think it's first of all an enjoyable book, a fun book, an interesting book. But also an important book. Also an important book as well. So a book called The Chip Wars by Chris Miller. So I encourage people to read it. I'm going to try to get Chris Miller on the show, see if he'll agree to be interviewed while I disagree with him on certain things that come out in the book. Just the story is so fascinating and it's so interesting and with so many implications that I think that it would be fun. I think it's Chip War. I don't think it's within S because they know multiple wars. There's just one. But it's not a great title because there's no war. I don't like wars that refer to inanimate objects. But it's super, it's a fascinating book on a fascinating topic that I don't know that much about. And I have a feeling most people don't know that much about, unless you're in the industry, you don't know that much about. So here's kind of the, so that's what we're going to talk about. And we'll get to that. We'll, God, we've got, we've got a lot of 50 buck questions rolling in a couple of them anyway. But anyway, so keep them coming, keep them coming. This is good. This is great. So let's see before we, so before we get to the actual topic, remind everybody that the super chat is available to ask me questions about anything. So we can go in any direction you guys want. You get, you guys get to set the terms of the discussion tomorrow at 2pm East Coast time. We will have a ask me anything session. Those of you are 25 and above can be on live video. The rest of you can be using the super chat to ask questions. So that'll just be, it should be fun. Could ask about anything, go anywhere. And some of you will be here live and it'd be great to, great to have you. So I hope, I hope you guys who want to come on live register, register for it. So we know how many people are going to be live. So that, that should happen, you know, that should happen soon. Let's see what else logistics next week. I'm traveling. So I just want to tell everybody I will be in Austin, Texas on Wednesday night, Wednesday night. Yes, doing a debate. I ran versus CS Lewis. It should be really fun. It should be really interesting. I think it's in a sense. This is the debate of our era. This is the political debate of our time. It really is the debate between M2 and I. It's the M2 being the misintegration and I being objectivism. It is the debate between ultimately authoritarianism, religion, intrinsic value, hatred of the left as being everything versus a perspective that focuses on objective values, freedom and capitalism and individualism. So collectivism, individual, everything, everything. It's full of everything, right? In metaphysics, reality versus mysticism and epistemology, reason versus revelation. And their revelation come from a variety of different, different origins if you look at CS Lewis. In morality, it's really egoism versus standard Christian morality. And in politics, it's individualism versus collectivism. So I think we're going to span most of that because of the particular book of CS Lewis we're focusing on. It's going to focus on kind of the intersection between epistemology and ethics, which will be interesting. And it's tentatively supposed to explain, you know, each one of their perspectives on the rise of totalitarianism in the mid-19... in the mid-20th century. That is, it's going to, in a sense, compare CS Lewis's book, whose name, of course... In this case, we right now, even though I've been reading it, which came out in, I think about the same time as the Fountainhead came out in the mid-1940s. And the perspective of each one of them on totalitarianism around that period of time. So I think it's going to be a great debate. I hope that if you live in Austin or if you live in nearby Austin, you live in Texas, you will come. It will be great to have a large objectivist presence there. This is one of the first events, I think, one of the first big public events of a new center, the Savita Center at the University of Texas in Austin. It's kind of a, I don't know, a right wing, maybe pro-free market. It's not clear yet exactly what the orientation will be. But it's got millions and millions of dollars behind it. It's a massive event. It's getting money from the government of Texas. It's getting money from a lot of very wealthy donors. And it's really a testament to some of the donors. It's a testament to our presence in Texas. That this debate features an objectivist is going to be one of the first debates that they have at the University of Texas. And the University of Texas, so what was I going to say? Yeah, so it's a great, I think it's great to have objectivist represented there in one of the first debates. If there's a good showing, I hope they'll have us back again. I would love to be much more involved in the center. Again, it's going to be very big. It's going to have a lot of money. It's going to be quite influential. It's backed by the secretive state and a lot of very influential donors in Texas, general donors, not institute donors. And it's going to have a huge budget. And it's going to present itself as the alternative to typical left on campus as the alternative to that. And it would be good if that alternative to the left was not dominated just by religionists. So part of my aim is to see is the center going to be open to objectivism. Is it going to be open to free market ideas? Is it going to be open to things outside of kind of a traditional conservative or even a nationalist conservative or religionist conservative point of view? Is it open to all of those? So again, if you're in Texas, if you're in Austin, come on over. I can't remember. I think the reception starts at 5.30. I think the beta is something like 6. So it should be a good, hopefully a good event. I'll be doing some other events in Austin at the time. I think I'm doing something with Greg Salamiere. I'm not sure what the title is, but it will be broadcasting a podcast out of there. I hope to be streaming that podcast live on my channel. So that will be live. That'll be before the event, but the event itself, I don't think it's being streamed, but certainly will be taped and I'll load it up once it is available. So please come, please join us. I know Alicia said she was coming to Austin just for it. So maybe some of you can even come to Austin just for it because it's going to be, it's going to be good. All right, let's see. So that is, that is the announcement I want to make. So I'll be there and then I'll be in Connecticut for a quick in and out. And then I'll be back for the rest of December. And in December, we'll do the regular news shows. We'll do these shows. We'll experiment a little bit and we'll see kind of how we want to launch 2023. We'll also have a big show on kind of summarizing the year and looking forward to next year on December 31st. You're going to wait for announcements about that. I'll kind of let you know as we get into December what's going to happen on that show, but that should be a big show, which it should be a lot of fun. So yeah, a lot of stuff going on and a lot of planning for next year. And I hope you join me in the planning. If you have suggestions how to make the show better. If you have suggestions on how to increase subscribers, join us. Don't forget to do a thumbs up before you leave. Likes, shares, that's how we're going to grow the show. And I need your help with that. So please like the show before you leave. If you liked it, if you don't like it, please don't like it, right? All right, let's see. Where am I? All right, so let's jump in on this topic. I come to the conclusion after reading Chip Will, that today the most strategic product produced in the world today for the United States. The product that the United States has more reliance on and more reliance on importation than any other product in the world today. And it's overtaken by the way, oil. So oil, if you think about oil, oil was the most strategic product in the world. And certainly for the United States, it was the most strategic product. You had to guarantee that the United States had enough oil both to provide the fuel, the energy, as Alex Epstein talks about all the time, the energy to basically create the last 150, 180 years of prosperity. It's a fuel, the industrialization, the mobilization, and the technology that has made us rich and has made America the richest country in the world and the most powerful nation in the world. It was a strategic, I don't call it commodity because at the end of the day oil, it's not the oil itself, but the ability to refine it and the ability, so it's the whole supply chain. But it's the most important product that fueled the last 150, 200 years, you know, from the mid-19th century on to today. It has been the most important product in the world and it had, again, had economic importance and it had strategic military importance. In order for the United States to be able to fight wars, in order for the United States to be able to project this power, in order for the United States to stay secure, it had to guarantee the oil flow in the world and much of the American Navy has been dedicated to both preserving the trade routes from the Middle East where the oil was to the United States where the oil gets to and to our allies in Europe. We have had aircraft carriers and we have a significant naval presence in the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Gulf. For that sole purpose, to secure the flow of oil to the West. And then, you know, over the last 10, 15 years, we have managed in the United States to create really a revolution by which, so early on, a lot of the oil revolution was in the U.S. and most, a lot of the production was in the U.S. and we were dominant in that production. Post World War II, or maybe even a little before World War II, the epicenter production of oil in the world moved to the Middle East. And then over the last 20 years, much of that has returned to the United States. Not so much the United States as the largest producer of oil in the world. And because of fracking, we now are, quote, self-sufficient in the sense that if there was a major war in the world and all the trade routes were cut off, the United States would be able to supply itself with oil and with natural gas, at least to a large extent. I mean, we still import for certain purposes and refining capacity is not optimized for the kind of oil we necessarily drill in the U.S. But we're in a pretty good shape. So from a strategic perspective, the United States is actually in pretty good shape. Although, you know, just I have to comment on this quickly, maybe I'll comment this more on my new show. The Biden administration, just I think this morning has allowed Chevron to start operating its facilities in Venezuela again and to start importing oil from Venezuela to the United States, thus giving a huge boost to the Maduro regime in exchange the Maduro regime has agreed. Isn't it nice of them to start negotiating with the opposition? We know exactly where that's going. And so they're getting this huge massive dollar benefit. They're getting this huge benefit of Western technology coming into the oil companies, oil fields. And in exchange we get them sitting down in Mexico to chat with the opposition. Anyway, so we're still trying to diversify our oil sources partially because Venezuela and oil is similar to Russian oil. So we cut off our Russian supply. We're bringing in a Venezuela supply. It's a type of oil that our foundries are very good at refining and I think that is used to make diesel. Of course, if we'd approved the pipeline and built that stupid pipeline already from Canada, then we would have that kind of oil because the Canadian sand tar oil is the same type of oil and we would have solved the problem with a friendly country rather than with an evil country like Venezuela, evil regime like Venezuela. Anyway, oil is clearly a strategic asset. It has crucial strategic importance to the United States militarily, economically. We could not survive without it and it has been the number one strategic asset in the world and we can learn certain lessons from what happened to oil and how it became centered in the Middle East and how we became the guarantor of Middle East, I don't know, flow and why we got interwound with Middle East countries in order to make that flow keep going, a deal we cut with the Saudi Arabians during World War II. We can learn from that because remember that the oil in Saudi Arabia, the oil in Iran, the oil in Iraq was discovered and exploited by French, British and U.S. companies and when, starting in the 1950s and 60s, they just nationalized it all, we did nothing. We let them steal, clearly, property and intellectual property, ideas and everything around the production of oil. We just let them steal it from American companies and, again, British and French companies. And the United States foreign policy was like, yeah, okay, Soviet, we'll defend their right. It's collectivism, power, salons, the king of Saudi Arabia obviously owns all the oil in Saudi Arabia and we'll get the chips in a minute in China, I promise. And all of that and so we backed off, we just let them have it and they had it and as a consequence of that we have been interwound with the Middle East ever since. And justifiably so because it is a strategic American economy, American life would not survive without that oil. It's not an optional kind of thing. So we have guaranteed its flow. Now you could argue that today, because of the fracking revolution and because there's still so much oil in the United States oil is less strategically threatened than it used to be. But it turns out there's something that is more strategic than oil, I think, right now. When it comes to the U.S. economy, really when it comes to global economy or certainly when it comes to the economy of the western world and it's not just economic. That is, it is a crucial part of our ability to defend ourselves. It is a crucial part of our military spending. It is a crucial part of ability to fight our enemies to the extent that such enemies arise and come about. And that product is semiconductors. Not just electronics broadly, but specifically semiconductors. Now there are kinds of semiconductors, but really almost all semiconductors today. A vast majority of semiconductors actually built in facilities in basically two countries. And that is in Taiwan and in South Korea. So while it is true that the United States has all, basically it dominates the, for example, the chip design industry, the chip design software, the main designer of breakthrough chips, the most advanced designers of breakthrough chips all in the United States, while it is true that you cannot fabricate the chips in South Korea and Taiwan without equipment. I talked about this in another show, the extreme ultraviolet manufacturing equipment produced in the Netherlands that basically has close to 100% market share in that type of fabric equipment and certainly in the extreme ultraviolet technology, they're the only players in the market. In the Netherlands and the United States, that's in the West, they're an ally. It is a fact that the production, the ability to fabricate chips, the ability to fabricate chips does not exist. There's very little capacity in the United States, there's some. And there's almost no capacity in Europe. Most of that capacity, almost all the capacity is in Asia, with a majority of that capacity in Taiwan and South Korea. There's some capacity in Singapore, there's some capacity in other places and different parts of the supply chain, all over Asia, and certainly China has some capacity in terms of chip manufacturing. But the dominant players are Taiwan and South Korea. Now, I want to give you a little bit of the scope of this thing, of chips, right? So 1947, you know, it's a long time ago, it's before even I was born. So it's a long time ago, granted. But it's not that long ago. And from the perspective of history, it's less than 100 years ago, it's not that long. In 1947, there was one transistor in the entire world. At Bell Labs, it had just been invented. Today, the semiconductor industry produces 2 billion trillion semiconductors a year. Now, that's the kind of number that I don't know how you can even comprehend. It produces almost 2 billion trillion, billion trillion.  Now you're doing a billion trillion. We don't have the language for those kind of sizes, those kind of quantities of anything. Now, we make in one year today more transistors than in all previous years combined up to 2017. So from 1947 to 2017, we made about 2 billion trillion. Now we do it in one year. So think about 2 billion trillion transistors. Now, some chips, some wafers of silicon have 100 million or a billion transistors on them. So just think about that, tiny little fraction of a millimeter thing has 100 million transistors on it. I mean, it's just, it's almost incomprehensible. I mean, these things are almost, some of these things are almost as thin as an atom. I mean, that's what they're getting to. They're getting to atom by atom designing these things. In an automobile, you know, we had a automobile shortage in 2021. What do we have an automobile shortage in 2021? Very few new automobiles coming onto the market. Automobile companies suffered huge losses during 2021. Why is that? Well, because there was a chip shortage, a particular kinds of chips that go in automobiles. There wasn't a general chip shortage. Chip companies, interestingly enough, sold more chips, more semiconductors in 2021 than any year before by a big margin. The whole chip shortage in automobiles was a mistake of the auto companies who, during COVID, basically cut their projections for chips into the future, stopped ordering chips. And then when the rebound happened in 2021, they were caught without any chips to actually build into the cars. You know, the cars have a thousand of these semiconductors. And every car can have hundreds of these semiconductors, just every single car. Our washing machines have semiconductors in them, certainly refrigerators. Our computers have a variety of different semiconductors. And you could go on and on and on and on. But they are all, they are all, everything we use almost, almost everything we use, uses semiconductors. If you shut down semiconductors tomorrow, shut down the production of semiconductors tomorrow, there would be no automobiles. Literally, you couldn't produce automobiles without the chips. There would be no appliances. Most of our appliances in our homes now have chips in them. There would be no new computers, no new telecom equipment, no new advances in AI. There'd be no progress. It would destroy, completely crush the US economy. I mean, every weapon system today that the US produces, with the exception maybe of semi-automatic rifles or automatic rifles or handguns, almost every semi-advanced weapon system today has chips in it. Indeed, the lack of chips is one of the reasons Russia is using and has used in the past, both in Syria and in Ukraine, unguided missiles. They're back to using the technology of maybe a little bit more advanced in World War II in order to fight a war as compared to what's available to the US, which is super unbelievably precision weaponry. Now, with the unwillingness of the West to sell chips to Russia, every single one of its advanced technology projects have come to a halt. The Russian economy will ultimately, isn't a process of collapsing. It's just doing it slowly because it so relies on a natural cell of natural resources that people are buying. But there's no advancement there. Engineers, at the end of the day, have nothing to do. They just don't have the chips. The micro process is in order to do it with. Russia was trying to build an alternative to the GPS. That is history now. GPS satellites. Anything advanced today relies on semiconductors. And without semiconductors, it's gone, both from a military perspective, from an economic perspective. You're finished. You're over. I'd say the most crucial, strategically crucial product today in the marketplace is a chips. And the thing is that it used to be that a number of different companies could produce chips. Chips was pretty decentralized. There were semiconductors being built by lots of different companies. Many of them in the United States. Intel is a good example of a company that still manufactures chips, but ADM. And there were many others, Micron. And there were lots of different kinds of chips. There's tons of different kinds of chips. There's logic chips. There's memory chips. There are different memory chips. There are a variety of different memory chips. And now there's all kinds of logic chips. There's the Intel logic chips. And then there's the ones out of Britain. I forget the name. And then there's a new one, something X5. So there's a lot of different types of chips, lots of them. And new specialized chips. There's Qualcomm, the designs, communication chips. I mean, there's hundreds of different types of chips, maybe thousands. Arms, thank you, arm chips, that's right. That's what's in Max now, arm chips. And every, you know, all of these chips, so there's a wide variety of chips. But the reality is that almost all those chips, almost all those chips are produced in two countries. They're produced by Samsung in South Korea, TCMC in Taiwan. There are a few other players in South Korea in Taiwan, but Taiwan and South Korea dominate this place. They don't necessarily design the chips. The great business model of TCMC, which was later copied by Samsung, the great business model of TCMC was to create a production facility that produced chips based on your specs. Based on anybody's specs, they would produce your chips for you. They didn't do the design itself. This is the difference between them and Intel. Intel designs its own processes and then builds its own processes. TCMC, the Taiwanese company, the innovation, which was innovated by a guy named Chang, who basically worked most of his career at Texas Instruments, who actually proposed the Texas Instruments, become a fabricator of chips, and be willing to fabricate them for anybody out there who ever wanted to design them. You would fabricate them for them. It is TCMC then, but TI said no, couldn't see the vision. Then when the governor of Taiwan wanted to start chip production in the country, they wanted to start their own company. They had always been chip production in the country. TI had a facility there, among others. Then they brought Chang over. They gave him a lot of money. He raised a lot of money for entrepreneurs with the help of the government. And he basically started his dream. He started his dream company, which was TCMC, which was a fabricator of chips designed by others. So Apple today has really, since the days of the iPhone, since the days of the early iPhones, all had chips designed by Samsung, or at least produced by Samsung. From the early days of pre-iPhone, Apple has designed its own chips. Now it designs its own chips for the computers as well. And those are ARM chips. But all of those chips, all of those chips, right? And all of those chips are produced, are built by either TCMC or Samsung. I think in Apple's case, it's mostly TCMC. TSMC. God, I keep saying it wrong. Sorry. I see it in front of me. I think I'm saying the word, and I'm saying a different word completely. Maybe I'm dyslexic after all. TSMC. TSMC. So Apple, you know, Qualcomm. Everybody knows Qualcomm. They're down in, I think, San Diego, Orange County area. They produce the most advanced telecommunication chips that go into the iPhones, that go into phones and other telecom equipment. They are produced at TSMC. They're designed at Qualcomm. And there are only three companies that provide the software for designing chips, all Cadence being one of them, all American companies. So, on every level, America is crucial for the chip industry. There is no chip industry without American expertise. But America specialized in, I'd say, everything except the manufacturer. The only entity the manufacturer is today is really on scale, logic chips at least, is in the United States, is Intel and Intel's way behind Intel's struggling, Intel's gone are the days where Intel was at the forefront of chip production in the world. Gone are the days where Intel is one of the most profitable, one of the most amazing companies in the world. It was in the days of Andy Grove. But those days are over. Today, TSMC is far more advanced. Samsung is far more advanced than even Intel. Even Intel, for some of its most advanced chips, is partnering with TSMC to produce them. So, we have a situation today where the most advanced chip in the world, the most advanced chips in the world, the chips that are necessary for driving the technological economy, the chips that are necessary for, you know, for any technological advance that's going to happen in the future. And from a national security perspective, the chips that are necessary to build and design the next generation of weapon systems, airplanes, aircraft carriers, submarines. Remember, every single one of these weapon systems have massive numbers of chips. They all depend on production facilities that are in Taiwan and South Korea. I take primarily Taiwan. And then Taiwan is also a disputed territory. And Taiwan is constantly threatened with invasion, with takeover by the Chinese government. A government that is developing weapon systems, that is developing weapon strategy, that positions in itself to be a real rival to the United States from a military perspective. A regime that is becoming more and more and more authoritarian and just elected basically a premier for life. So here you have China, a real threat to the United States, being, you know, seven minutes away by jet fighter from the manufacturing facility that the United States basically today is dependent on for economic growth and even for military success. Now, we do have some fabrication plans in the United States, primarily to do very advanced chips for the military. So it's not like it's zero. If TSMC disappeared, we'd have nothing. But we would struggle. The US economy would go fall off a cliff. Our military would have a hard time producing more weapons and arming them with the right like drones and things like that, arming them with the right technology. Really struggle. And yet, Taiwan is seven minute flight from Air Force, the Chinese Air Force bases on the eastern coast of China across from the Taiwan Straits. Okay, so clearly the United States is at a strategic, it's a real strategic challenge. I mean, at the end of the day, I've come to believe Taiwan is not just an issue of this is a free country that is threatened by an authoritarian country and therefore we should be for the free country. We should. All of that is true. But I think that Taiwan is more than that to the United States today. Taiwan is a strategic necessity for the United States. Taiwan is, whoops, somebody's asking for the super chat total. Sorry, I could do that. I can post that every few minutes. Taiwan is today necessary. Its security is necessary. The plant in Taiwan, the TSMC plant is a strategic asset to the United States of America. As much so, if not more so than oil was coming in from the Gulf States. Now we'll get to the implication of that in a minute, in a few minutes, but I just want that to sink in. The United States today depends for its prosperity, for its economic growth, for its security on a manufacturing plant on an island just a couple of hundred miles. How wide is the Taiwanese Strait? A couple of hundred miles from mainland China with China constantly threatening to invade. Now I want to put that aside for a minute and focus on China a little bit because there's a number of issues here with regard to China and then I still haven't gotten to COVID, but we'll get to COVID in a minute with regard to China. China realizes, it has realized for a long time, but certainly since about 2015 it has placed a significant strategic emphasis on this. Sorry, the Taiwanese Strait is 81 miles wide, so even worse, right? So it's spinning distance from China. China could be there again seven minutes by airplane, not that long, less than an hour by boat, by fast boat, maybe a couple of hours. It's right there. China itself has recognized since the last 10 years at least that chip manufacturing is key to its strategic well-being. It knows that without advanced chips it cannot build an advanced military to challenge the United States. It knows that without advanced chips it cannot build an advanced economy, global economy that is dependent more and more and more on electronics, more and more and more on software and hardware ultimately driven by semiconductors. For example, China has placed a big emphasis on AI, both for its own so-called internal security where it is spying on all of its citizens to do that. It needs massive ability to analyze information and then have the machines come to conclusions about who's okay and who's not for that. It means massive AI. It's easy for the Chinese to spy on everybody but to analyze the data requires massive computing power. That requires very advanced software, which the Chinese are pretty good at. They might be as good as the Americans are. But it also requires very advanced chips. It turns out that those chips today, most AI chips today, chips doing AI is most chips to do AI today are designed and ultimately built for NVIDIA. NVIDIA, maybe you know NVIDIA from graphics, GPU chips, it turns out the GPU chips are the best type of chips to run in parallel to do AI functions. So what we have is a, you know, it's also true, for example, that AI drives weapon systems. You know, the United States today can launch a missile and, you know, it can track a target by itself. It can track a moving target by itself using a little computer inside the missile. The basically uses AI to figure out the optimal path to evade radar, to evade anti-missile technology of the other side and to hit a moving target. Launch and forget is much more advanced than it was 20 years ago even. I think the Chinese have that technology as well, at least almost as much of that technology as anywhere else. They have much of that technology, maybe not as advanced as the U.S., but it's sufficiently advanced to pose a real threat to the U.S. Navy off the coast of China, off the coast anyway, all over, supposedly they can reach 1,800 or 3,000 miles. So really the entire Pacific is at the, they can target moving targets. Let me just say before this kind of moves beyond me, Len, Len, thank you for the 30 Canadian, Travis, thank you for the 20 U.S. dollars, really appreciate it. All of the Chinese advanced weapons systems basically depend on advanced chip technology. Where do these chips come from? Almost all of them in one way or another come from the United States. That is, they're either buying a video chip, so they're buying the software to design chips locally, they're buying software to design chips that's from U.S. firms, or they're buying tools to build chips, U.S., almost all of it. From the U.S., they also are having TSMC fabricate those chips for them. So the entire Chinese economy today, to one extent or another, is being driven by a technology that they are way behind on. So this is the other part of this. China is way behind. On chip fabrication, they have some companies, but those companies are a few generations behind TSMC or Intel or Samsung in South Korea. So they're behind on their ability to design the most advanced chips. They're behind on design of chips. They're behind on software to design chips. They really have very little where they are ahead. They have supposedly really, really good AI programming. They have really, really good AI computational ability. They have supercomputer companies that do the AI for them. But the supercomputer companies are companies that actually require chips from the U.S. through Taiwan. I mean, China's dream come true would be much more valuable than Hong Kong. Dream come true would be Taiwan becomes a part of China. No fighting, no bombs, no explosions, no risking destroying the TSMC facilities. But imagine if Taiwan just handed itself to China and thus they gain, in one instant, the most advanced technology to fabricate chips in the world. And we now become dependent on them for chips, which we are not today. They are dependent on us, you know, every aspect of chip production. Again, they do produce some chips. They are pretty good at certain types of memory chips, NAD, I think it's called. But even there, they're not yet cutting edge. They're still behind. They're still behind. They are aggressively, just like the Russians before them, and just like I'd say many countries have done, aggressively stealing intellectual property across the board. They have been for a long time. But intellectual property has to be implemented. You could download, I don't know, take the extreme ultraviolet fabricating machine that ASML, I think it's ASML, from the Netherlands produces. ASML, just the laser in ASML's thing.  You had every detail, every technical detail. You still couldn't produce it. Just the laser inside the extreme ultraviolet machine, which is produced in the United States, has 450,000 different parts that are produced in some of the most perfect conditions with companies and engineers that the quality specifications are to the, I don't know, a millionth of a million meter. I don't know exactly, but unbelievable specs that China just can't match. These lasers were designed specifically for the extreme ultraviolet thing. Ultraviolet is the light that they put over the wafer chip, over the silicon chip, in order to carve into the silicone the transistors, all the different circuitry that goes in there. Three nanometer. I mean, it is, you know, the technology of building this stuff is impossible. I think I mentioned in a preview show the numbers that are inside this machine. Mirrors that can only be produced by this lens company. What are they called? They're on Sony cameras. Maybe my camera, no, my camera. The lens is not that. My other camera. It starts with a Z. I can't remember the name of the German company. This German company is the only company in the world that can produce these mirrors.  Chinese can't produce that. Americans can't produce that. The Dutch can't produce that. The Russians can't produce that. The Saudis certainly can't produce that. You have to be a German. A German fine machinery company. Z-Z-Z-Z-E-I-S-S. Thank you, Frank. You have to be a German company that has worked on lenses for a hundred plus years and has refined the skills and got the right machinery. And all of its engineers are focused just on that. So here we have... I mean, maybe the Japanese could do it. Maybe. If it took them a decade maybe or two decades to work on it. And by the time they got it, then ASML would be ten years ahead with a new technology. There's now a new technology of extreme ultraviolet that blows extreme ultraviolet out of the water. And it's pretty amazing, but it just gets better. So China can't catch up. I mean, not in the near future. Who knows? Decades in the future. But not in the next couple of decades. They can steal all the stuff they want. They can't catch up. They can't catch up. And then the question is, as China becomes more militaristic, more threatening, as China becomes more authoritarian, as China becomes more aggressive in the Taiwan Strait, to what extent should the United States allow China, assuming China poses a national security threat, to just be able to use this kind of chip technology developed wherever, in the Netherlands or the United States or anywhere else, that can be used for military applications that threaten the United States. China is investing hundreds of billions of dollars in semiconductor stuff in trying to catch up. Of course the United States is spending tens of billions of dollars. The United States government has spent throughout its history on DARPA, has spent huge amounts of money on chip design. The US government now has a chip bill where they're going to spend $50 billion. Taiwanese government has spent a fortune. The Japanese government has spent a fortune. We don't live in a laissez-faire world, unfortunately. We live in a world in which governments have spent money mostly wasted but not all of it. Much of it has furthered... We don't have a parallel universe to see what would have happened if they hadn't spent it, but suddenly Taiwan wouldn't have TSMC if it hadn't put up the big bucks. And that business model, which turned out to be incredibly profitable and while business model might never have seen the light of day, maybe the South Koreans would have done it. Maybe they would have been the TSMC or maybe Chang could have developed the TCMC fabrication idea without government support. We just don't know. The reality is, governments have supported it. And the reality is that these advanced chips, the most advanced chips, are potentially going to be used as weapons against the United States, against American companies, against American citizens. We've already seen that with YA, I can't pronounce the name. It's the Chinese telecommunication company that got into trouble with the Trump administration and I think even more with the Biden administration and was ultimately... And the theory there was and supposedly there was evidence to suggest that Hawaii was using a lot of the chips that Hawaii... Hawaii... Hawaii, something like that, Hawaii. A lot of the chips that Hawaii was using were designed by US companies, fabricated TCMC, fabricated maybe the US. Some of them were Chinese. Putting them together was Chinese and the risk, the suspicion, and I think there was some evidence of this, that the Chinese were putting in... into these chips, into these devices, they were putting them in back doors so the Chinese could spy on telecommunications. Now, you know, this shouldn't shock anybody because after all, the United States, as Snowden taught us, as Snowden revealed to us, was doing exactly the same thing with telecommunication and computers and websites in the United States with American companies and they were finding ways around. Who are we? Who are we? Something like that. I don't know. Wey-wey. Wow-wey. Wow-wey. Okay, wow-wey is easier. Wow-wey. We'll just call it wow-wey. Anyway, because of the fact that they were designing this telecommunication and the telecommunications can be dominant and the ability of the Chinese to tap into it was the international security threat. Wow-wey was basically banned from doing business in the United States and ultimately in the United States and ultimately many European countries banned it from doing business and then what the US did is it banned the exploitation of advanced chips to companies like Wow-wey. Now, Wow-wey was another company now I forgot that there was also a Chinese company that was a subsidiary of Wow-wey but that was completely owned by the Chinese government and they were also banned. So a number of companies. Then more recently as recently as one month ago the Biden administration has banned the exportation of advanced chips, advanced chip technology exactly which ones are still to be determined and exactly how the ban is going to come into effect is ZTE, thank you Ian. ZTE was the name of the Chinese company. Ban all advanced chips, selling any advanced chips in two categories. One of them was AI and God, I forget the other category where they banned advanced chips but AI was one of them and that has just been a crushing blow to the Chinese because now they can't, a lot of their military programs, a lot of their AI ideas, a lot of their AI technology which they're supposedly so advanced in this affects companies like Alibaba which is invested massively in AI. It affects companies like Tencent which again has invested massively in AI. Without the more advanced chips the investment in AI is not very valuable. The Chinese are pretty good at developing and producing last generation and generation before their chips but they completely rely on foreigners for advanced chips, they also completely rely on foreigners for the extreme ultraviolet. The Dutch today announced that they will not succumb to American pressure to stop selling these EUV machines to the Chinese but the Chinese really don't have the capacity to do, oh, no, no, they won't stop selling fabrication machines to the Chinese but they have agreed to not sell to the Chinese the extreme ultraviolet machines certainly not the next generation that's coming out in 2025. Indeed, the first customer for the next generation extreme ultraviolet machines is going to be Intel trying to revive itself it's part of its strategy for reviving itself. So Chinese are not going to have the capacity to fabricate advanced chips they will have the capacity to fabricate older generation chips using old machines that ASML will indeed sell them. I think the US was trying to get ASML not to sell them any devices but many US companies want to continue selling China-China as a massive market it's a market that really depends on chips what they're not allowed to sell is chips that the United States government believes can be used in military applications the United States is trying to stop the massive advances in weapon technologies on the Chinese side. Alright, so that is the story probably more than you ever wanted to hear about semiconductors I think it's fascinating the global supply chain in chip manufacturing is fascinating none of these advances in chip making none of these advances in chip fabrication could be possible without a global supply chain and the question really is right now is should China be part of that global supply chain or should China be excluded from that global supply chain because it is a military threat and I think that is one interesting question the second interesting question is how do you secure the global supply chain from Chinese potential, Chinese aggression so that's the that's the second question but let me be very clear chip development chip advancement has been made possible because of globalization it's been made possible because of the relatively free trade that exists between within Europe German, Dutch and other companies UK where ARM is designed ARM logic chips between Europe and the United States between Europe United States and Taiwan South Korea, Singapore and most importantly maybe of all historically Japan all of these countries have integrated their chip capacities none of these countries could survive alone not the United States, not Europe not Japan, none of them they all are interdependent they all depend on various pieces of software, various pieces of hardware to advance technologically no single country today can literally advance technologically by itself it cannot become self-sufficient China has a goal of becoming self-sufficient technologically it can never achieve that at least not in the next couple of decades it's just not possible I don't think ever but it's just not possible because of the division of labor and the vast specialization how amazing it's been and of course China to a logic stand has provided the funding for much of this advance by having one of the larger consumer markets in the world and having one of the largest assembly markets in the world so chips are sold into China by the gazillions which provides capital to companies like TSMC and Samsung and Intel to be able to keep advancing and in that sense the global economy is completely integrated and it would be a tragedy of unbelievable scope to disentangle to stop that integration we would slow down technological and scientific advancements in this field which is the most crucial field for human advancement right now by generations maybe biotech is more important I don't know but certainly this and biotech are the two most important areas for technological advancement in our future so what do you do you have your facilities threatened some of the most important facilities in this integrated system threatened by a Chinese invasion which would clearly destroy TSMC and if the Chinese didn't destroy it the Taiwanese might destroy it because they wouldn't want it to fall into Chinese hands you have South Korea Seoul you have a threat from the North Koreans you have potentially from the Chinese so you have a situation where a small you know a small tiny area in Asia in eastern Asia off the coast of China is strategically the most important area maybe in the world today I think more important than the Middle East more important than the Middle East somebody say Z racer says yeah I mean biotech will only advance if AI advances you need massive computational power in order to get the next few breakthroughs in biotech because it depends on data so what should the United States do now this is me right this is my views as I've often said from this show this is not objectivism I don't know what I ran would say I don't know what Leonard Peacock would say this is my best estimate how to evaluate this and based on kind of what Leonard just said about the Middle East this is my best estimate I think what the United States should basically do is officially declare that it will defend Taiwan I think the United States should be investing heavily in the kind of anti-missile technology that Taiwan will need to defend itself and to defend the semiconductor facilities on the island I think the United States should share that technology with the Taiwanese and provide that technology on its ships I think it should beef up its presence in the Pacific not just with Taiwan but to preserve the shipping lanes out of South Korea to preserve the shipping the shipping lanes out of Singapore I think we should also expect demand if you will South Koreans significantly expand their military budget including their navy to supplement and complement the US presence I think the same should absolutely be true of the Japanese the Japanese now today have probably the second best navy in the world after the United States but China's navy is growing and it is incumbent on the Japanese to grow that navy to view it as a navy that helps the United States and works with the United States in preserving the shipping lanes from Asia to the United States and basically preserving the autonomy and the security of Taiwan I think this should be made explicit I don't think this should be hidden I don't think this should be just a gaffe that Biden has made although who knows why he said it but he said it now twice the United States is committed to securing Taiwan I think the Chinese should know and understand unequivocally where America stands and what are the costs of them violating the deal or invading, trying to invade Taiwan I think the United States should consider providing the Taiwanese with nuclear weapons as a deterrent against the Chinese I think we should do everything in our power to preserve China is independent from Taiwan is independent from China as long as China is an authoritarian regime that is threatening I also think we should boycott the sale of the most advanced chips to China and the most advanced chip making equipment to China let them have the older generation chips as much as they want but the most advanced chips are crucial for the preservation I think of a strategic military advantage for the United States over the Chinese I think there's one condition I would say where I would eliminate any all export constraints on China and that condition would be Chinese for recognition of Taiwan as an independent state we can tell them that imagine an American president actually telling the Chinese that if they want completely normal relationship they either need to become free themselves or they need to recognize Taiwan's independence to me that's much tougher rhetoric and much tougher positioning than any American president has had as you know I would shut down my Chinese embassy I would shut down diplomatic relationship with China but that's a whole other category of foreign policy but just in relates to what we've talked about we cannot have this unbelievably strategic asset unprotected and vulnerable to Chinese invasion Chinese destruction or the Chinese takeover yes I know the recognition in and of itself is not enough so you have to think about what would be required beyond recognition how would you make that recognition real but that would be a minimum but I've often thought that the United States should just leave Taiwan why should American kids die so Taiwan can stay independent well American kids wouldn't be dying for that would be dying for the preservation of the American way of life and I don't think the alternative is to build chip fabrication in the United States you know that it costs more to build a chip fab it costs more than to build an aircraft carrier and you have to stay on top of the latest greatest technology and that costs more hundreds of billions of dollars I mean specialization is here important the Taiwanese have specialized in this it could be the future generation products you know other countries can specialize above and beyond the Taiwanese but as long as the Taiwanese dominate the space they should be protected and that protection should be explicit and that protection should be yep Jesus said make Taiwan the 51st state I mean that's also possible you can make Taiwan the 51st South Korea the 52nd maybe Israel the 53rd I mean a lot of things but then then you really you've got an empire and there's no reason for that you can provide you can provide Taiwan a South Korea with a U.S. deterrent you can provide them with U.S. protection without getting into a whole the whole political thing of actually annexing them and turning them into a part of the United States and having to manage an empire which is difficult in and of itself the flip side of all of this is I continue not to be worried about China that is at the end of the day China is weak and weakening everything I've read about chip technology suggests that China cannot catch up or will not catch up anytime in the next couple of decades I know that authoritarianism is not an environment not an environment ever where technology flourishes and succeeds and as and as China becomes more authoritarian and has become authoritarian over the last 5-6 years innovation technology progress will you know deflate will disappear and if the United States and the West had semi-decent immigration policies there is a massive number of Chinese engineers, entrepreneurs, scientists who would love to come to the United States and work or to come to anywhere in Europe and work some of them will be spies but again who cares I mean you care you put them you know you catch them put them in jail but you know you don't want spies but it doesn't make any difference most of them will not be spies or most of them could contribute enormously to the vibrancy and dynamism of American entrepreneurship as immigrants have for generations indeed if you look at the chip industry the chip industry has been dominated in the United States the chip industry in the United States has been dominated dominated dominated by foreigners by immigrants whether it's Chang who dominated in TI whether it's Andy Grove in in Intel many of the others who immigrated from all over the world and became the people who moved moved the industry in the United States created innovation started the companies today many of them from India look at how many Indian CEOs you have in technology companies today Israel is a technology powerhouse that many Israelis have immigrated to Silicon Valley so if we had semi decent immigration policy China would become even less of a threat and then finally I want to emphasize something I said the other day about COVID in China I got an email from an objectivist in China and he said Yuan what you're saying is absolutely true about China but you're underestimating it COVID is a disaster for China it's hard to measure the scale of the disaster from purely economic perspective shutting down the economy shutting down whole region shutting down whole cities is having a massive impact on the Chinese economy there is a massive slowdown has been for months and months over a year but it is intensifying a recession that could become a depression the government spins the numbers the government will pretend nothing's happening but to compare I mean China has manufactured a zero tolerance for COVID which is absurd particularly given the availability of vaccines so what we're facing in China is massive potential for a recession in economic slowdown the loss of progress the loss of economic dynamism the loss of factories you know remember what happened in the U.S. when they did some lockdowns China's doing lockdowns on steroids by the way funny anecdote the only factory that was stayed open during the Wuhan lockdowns in March of 2020 February of 2020 was the chip making factory in Wuhan they actually had special trains special buses or whatever employees in and out of that factory during that time but it's somehow managed to stay open but everything else shuttered so the economy is devastated right restaurants stores, mid-sized businesses laying off people, shuttering their floors the government keeps trying to pump money into the economy they just announced another big stimulus now it's nothing as compared to what that economy needs and what it's losing because of the lockdowns and because of the attitude China has come a long way from the days of starvation and depredation under Mao of mass famines Chinese again according to this email I got from the objectivist who live in China the Chinese are super proud of that they can't believe they could grow back to that but they're starting to fear it they remember it it's only a few generations away there's still grandparents who lived through Mao's rule they are patrified in a sense of a return like that and beyond that the people are pissed off they're upset I don't know if you've seen stories about the riots at Foxcom at the Apple assembly plants where because of the lockdowns these people were locked in their dormitories and not allowed to leave and they've broken out and they've taken their suitcase and they've climbed the walls and they've gone over bobbed wire and they're escaping they're getting out of there they're not prisoners they were there to work, make a living and this is going on in China there was just a fire in a city I think 10 people were killed and the response to the fire was very slow because of COVID restrictions and there are now demonstrations throughout the city so it really is hard to imagine and how bad it is and on top of that there is this ongoing uncertainty you have a shutdown and it's over and it's done but you don't know when the shutdown is coming you don't know whether to discover one COVID case somewhere you don't know where, you don't know when you don't know how often living with that kind of uncertainty is terrifying debilitating mind-shutting and as a consequence doesn't surprise me that the Communist Party in China is probably less popular today that in any point in time maybe through the exception of Tiananmen Square and there is starting to be real resistance there is starting to be real questioning of this Xi-Chinese regime now I'm not saying there's going to be a revolution I'm not saying but would it shock me if Xi was deposed no, in the next few years even in the next few months and a lot of this will have to do with zero COVID zero COVID so China is in bad shape guys it's in bad shape it is not a threat right now but of course desperate countries often do desperate things desperate countries often start wars out of desperation so certainly there is the potential for China to do something dramatic if it feels like it has no choice like invading Taiwan alright wow Weave 8060 just pitched in $400 to take us to 650 or 660 actually thank you Weave let's see he says someone else can add the rest Dr. Brooke here covered tech, history, immigration defense, common affairs, finance corporate management Southwest Dallas, Texas I don't know what's Southwest Dallas, Texas I guess that's where he's from assume that's what that is Thank you Weave 8060 that is amazing I really really appreciate the support thank you guys alright so we've made our targets bottom line is China is weak China is not going to get stronger all the actual indications are that China is going to get weaker its economy is in tatters the only solution to China's problem is more freedom and that's the last thing they want or at least the regime wants, people might want it but the regime wants COVID is weakening the regime and weakening Xi the backwardness in technology is weakening the regime and weakening Xi weakening them economically weakening them militarily the United States does not have to do much to beef up its position in Southeast Asia in well no East Asia in order to pose a real threat to the Chinese so that they will leave Taiwan alone I think the United States needs to be explicit about it because the Chinese don't have any doubts in their minds I think if they do I think the rest of the world without China can prosper China can continue to be a big consumer and a big supply of consumer goods and other tradeable goods but it will not be able to become a technological powerhouse and as it weakens, if it becomes free then all restrictions should be lifted on it and it can join the globalized economy completely that is my latest on China it's also my latest on technology I hope you appreciate I hope you got value out of all of that it was a lot and we've gone an hour and 25 minutes and that's just me speaking for an hour and a half non-stop take something and you guys stuck with me most of you anyway, stuck with me so good for you, thank you if you would like to provide value for value I think it was good stuff if you want to provide value for value you can do so on the superchat you can also do so monthly or you can just use PayPal or you can use Venmo or you can use Subscribestar or you can use Patreon, the locals to support the Iran Book Show in one way or another and all the different forms of support alright, cool let's look at Michael Sanders when I argue eventually when Objectivism is implemented humanity will achieve its full potential a nirvana people respond communists and evangelicals are just a certain and they think they know the truth as much as you do what makes you different? what makes you different is that communists have tried the nirvana and failed miserably that the closer you get to communism the more miserable and pathetic and horrible life becomes evangelicals have tried the nirvana in the various religious wars or the various theocracies of the world and we've seen the consequence of that and the fact is and the closer you get to greater greater greater authoritarianism under religion the worse things are the fact is that the more and more freedom you have the closer and closer you get to capitalism and if you combine it with objective values the more prosperous people become so even if you don't get to the absolute implementation of every objectiveism in every aspect in human life and you get to absolute utopia nirvana the path there is going to be filled with wealth and flowers and chip technology and computers and fabric and going to Mars and going to Venus and doing amazing things see we're not dependent on the utopia coming into existence to make progress in the world we just need freedom just some Wes has a random question that came to mind when you write something with a partner Don Watkins, Ilan Juno how do you split the work well I mean everybody splits the work differently and you know I think the way we have split the work in the past is Don and Ilan basically do the writing and all that involves writing is not just technical all that involves the thinking and that involves as part of the writing I am involved a lot in the coming up with the big answers the strategy maybe sometimes the structure depends on the piece different pieces of code differently free market revolution was different little different that you call this unfair which was a little different than the articles I've written with Ilan I do quite a bit of editing after the fact and restructuring sometimes the more I've worked with either one of them the easier all of it becomes the smoother it becomes once we come up with ideas the writing is relatively smooth so I'd say that's the way I don't do the writing might do some outlining might do some editing of the right line but don't actually do the writing all right Jeff says thank you for the early shows I see more Europeans interested frequently good idea good for graveyard shift workers like me as well thanks Jeff really appreciate that we've 8060 very interesting good research and analysis thank you and thank you for the $400 I mean thank you for the comment and the financial support is fantastic Andrew says why is the strong man woman type of political leader gaining in popularity I mean it's it's it's it's all right the short answer to that is because as people give up on reason as people give up on thinking as people give up on rational rationality what are they left with they're left with forced coercion strong man authoritarianism so ultimately as our epistemology shifts away from individuals taking care of themselves based on their own mind once you take their own mind out of it then they can't take care of themselves they can't be individualists anymore they gravitate towards some kind of collective for security and who gets decide what a collective does well for a while you can play a democracy you can play it voting but ultimately that's going to fail ultimately that's going to result in outcomes that are not positive and the consequence of that is that somebody says I know best I know how to govern I know how to rule and I'm going to force you all to follow my way and you get an authoritarian and the strong man is popular because people realize that they can't really take care of themselves they can't do it themselves and they can't listen to the majority so we need somebody smart and strong and efficacious to do the thinking for us because we can't do it for ourselves so it all starts with epistemology Michael says if you lost everything would you not be too prideful to work a crappy job like the living for do-dash yeah of course why would I of course I wouldn't be what does pride means that I'd be encouraged to work at whatever work I could get it's lack of pride which says ooh that's not a job for me that's lack of pride okay Michael says there haven't been any M2 takeovers since the birth of objective and coincidence yeah I think it is a coincidence I don't think objective is prevented the rise of M2's and indeed you could see a rise of M2 in the future history does not take the path that one expects it to make it doesn't work at the time scale that you necessarily expect it to work at so it takes a long time for these things to happen I think much more important than objectivism to this is the durability of enlightenment values the durability of some sense of individualism and a durability of some respect for reason that are preventing the complete M2 takeover Michael says is rejection like redirection nothing to look down on yourself for yeah I mean if the rejection is not your fault it's not representative of some weakness you have then yeah then it's you're ejected you move on it might hurt emotionally but you've got to be rational about it you've got to move on and redirect it what are you in Connecticut public event I'm in the area an event it's not exactly public it's for a group called it's leadership of the Rockies but it's got a different name in Colorado I always forget the name in Colorado but it is a group that meets nine times a year on a Friday for a whole day and it has presentations about ideas and I give two of those presentations during the at least two of those presentations and objectives give at least one presentation every session in the nine sessions it's called anyway it's not it's CLP something like that anyway it doesn't matter thanks Wes Frank says in Shawshank film Andy says to the one how can you be so obtuse it is deliberate what do you make of this are some offended by use of fancy words who's offended I don't get it Andy says how are you how can you be so obtuse but the warden is not used to somebody talking back to him even if it is you know even if it is a fancy word obtuse being a fancy word so it's the warden being shocked that somebody's talking back to him being upset at somebody talking back to him somebody who is obviously sophisticated because of the fancy word is sophisticated and that just makes him more angry and when he says is it deliberate now that freaks out the warden even more because now it sounds like Andy is accusing him of something who the hell is Andy to accuse him of anything and Andy of course gets solitary confinement for that Scott says does Taiwan have a right to declare independence of course it has a right to declare independence who would Taiwan need a right for Taiwan is declaring independence from a less free place if you're declaring independence in order to pursue greater freedom that is fine declaring independence to pursue less freedom that is not you don't have a right to do that do you think individualism is seen as a value by the Chinese people almost Chinese fatalistic about their government or is their resistance I have zero sense of modern Chinese culture I actually do think the Chinese are quite individualistic that was my impression from my several visits to China they have a certain sense of life they have a certain spirit that is quite individualistic that is quite vivacious that is quite energetic and pro-life they are very committed to family in a kind of a little bit of a collectivistic way and some of them maybe many of them are quite nationalistic but I don't know how deep that goes and I don't know how common that really is but most Chinese I interacted with almost Chinese I saw in the street gave off the impression of being celebrating their wealth celebrating their hard work wanting more and more and caring about themselves being in that sense quite individualistic are they fatalistic about their own government I think so I mean in a sense so we Americans aren't we fatalistic about our own government I think they realize the cost of revolution is massive they saw that in Tiananmen Square they they don't know how to organize exactly because the government is so involved on spying on them constantly I think the more intellectual the more educated are trying to find ways to get out of China and move to the United States primarily I think people with money are trying to figure out how to get their money out I think China is experiencing a brain drain although it could have the brain drain could be much much greater if if China was if the United States had better immigration policies so that's my sense of looking to get out but it's a challenge to get out Simon asked is it irrational for an objective is to be with a religious conservative can that cause problems in the long run I don't think it's necessarily rational I know a lot of couples that have done that I think it can survive it's likely to come up against real problems particularly when it comes to raising kids when it comes to I don't know certain other values that you might want to pursue or not pursue I don't think it's simple I think anytime there's a clash of values that goes that deep it can be an issue but it's not necessarily rational you can often work those things out and you can often find somebody where they are the best option possible and better to be with somebody like that that you love that shares many of your values then not to be with somebody at all I I think it's not necessarily rational but it is a challenge Ayan Mirkat says this is proof Winnie the Pooh does not have a mandate of heaven that we're talking about Winnie the Pooh for some reason has become the nickname by those who are critical of him of Xi the dictator in China so yes he does not have a mandate from heaven since there is no heaven but easy Anonymous user says what are your thoughts on the international traffic and arms regulation I don't know I've never looked into it but I am for there being restrictions on sale of weapons systems around the world so I don't think yes so all kinds of restrictions and all kinds of criteria and standards I haven't thought through exactly what those would be and I'd be shocked if there's a law that reflects what I would think is the right thing that would be very surprising they never they don't usually do what I think is the right thing why would they do it here let's see oops what is happening there James asks what are your thoughts on swinging in the event both parties are open to it do you think some form of multiple marriage partners will happen in the US I mean swinging is problematic because it depends what you mean by swinging swimming means just going and sleeping with whoever who's willing to swing with you it's sleeping with whoever which I see the problem if swinging means having more relationships than one again I think people should can I don't experiment with it I don't necessarily condemn people who experiment with it to figure it out I don't think it's sustainable for very long but I also don't think it's like a mortal sin either do I think forms of multiple marriage partners will happen it already is happening in the US certainly among the Mormons some sects of Mormons some sects of other things and people are doing it there are polyamorous relationships out there do I think it will become legal at some point maybe one day probably not today I don't think there's anything against it other than I don't think it works ultimately Roland says looking for the meeting you at the poker tables in Miami next summer yeah that's a chip war Daniel says you once wondered why the new right admires Russia but hates China I think the simple answer is race I think you're right and the mythology that they have because the only thing that unites Russia with Europe the only thing that makes Russia European is race it certainly isn't European when it comes to culture it's not even European when it comes to religion because the Orthodox Church is very different Russian Orthodox Church is quite different than the religions of Europe culture doesn't unite them so what makes Russia European is a little bit of geography and mostly race a little difference genetically between Northern Europeans and Russians on the other hand there's quite a bit of difference genetically between Russians, Northern Europeans and Southern Europeans so difference between Northern Europeans and Southern Europeans is bigger than the difference between Northern Europeans and Russians so yes and vaguely Christianity but again Russian Orthodox Christianity is quite different than Protestantism and Catholic Catholicism Jason And by the way, Christianity's never been a feature, right? The Philippines are Catholic. Nobody considers them Europe, the Africa, lots of Catholics in Africa and Latin America, nobody considers them European. So religion is not the dominant fact. I think it is, unfortunately, racism. It's genes. Jason says, Taiwan matters, happy holidays. Yes it does, turns out it really does, much more than I thought it did. Michael says, is Texas the best place to live in terms of income and income potential relative to cost of living? I don't know, I'm not sure it is. It could be Nashville, it could be Florida, some parts of Florida, probably depends on your profession and whether their job's there. I don't know that I can say definitively. Clearly a place with zero income, state income tax and lots of jobs is what you wanna look for, but I think the same thing is true at Tennessee and of parts of Tennessee and of parts of Florida. James G, have you seen this, have you seen this quote? Why most humans live inside this small circle? It highlights why Asia will consistently grow compared to the rest of the globe. No, I haven't seen it, but the fact is that the population of Asia, particularly the population of China is shrinking, the population of India will peak soon and start shrinking, the population of Asia generally will peak in a few years and start shrinking, the population of Japan is shrinking, the population of Korea is shrinking, the population, so population of Asia is actually in big trouble. Japan and Korea are seeing, close to population collapses in the next few decades. So is China, China too. China's population collapses in the next few decades. James G says, in the event you did not live in Texas, what states would you pick? What countries would you consider? I like learning your view on the objective point of view on picking a place to not only live a thrive in your life. I don't know, there's so many factors. I mean, I would consider, I would certainly consider Arizona, I think Arizona, I like the desert. It's got low taxes. It's got a relatively high sense of freedom and liberty. I would consider Washington State, which I think doesn't have a state income tax, but it has a lot of rain and it's a beautiful place, one of the most beautiful places to live in the world. But it rains a lot, so that would probably, I would only spend summers there. I wouldn't consider Idaho just because it has a very high percentage, it used to have, at least, of kind of white supremacist types, particularly in Northern Idaho. I don't like Florida. I find Florida boring, flat, hot, humid, nothing really that interesting to it.  It's a nice city. You could consider Atlanta, in Georgia, again, low taxes, low regulations, relatively pleasant place to live.  California was the best place for me to live. Countries, New Zealand is amazing. Australia might be a nice place to live, although the lockdowns they had were so offensive and so absurd and ridiculous that it's a scary place. It's become a scary place. Where else would I consider living? Spain, Italy, weather-wise, culture-wise, the food-wise fantastic places to live. Switzerland, of course, from a tax perspective or from a freedom perspective, Switzerland. Yeah, I'd say Switzerland, Italy, Spain, and Portugal. Lisbon strikes me as a great place to live. And they're encouraging people to move so you could get Portuguese citizenship fairly easily with a relatively small investment. And I think taxes are pretty low and quality of life is very high, cost of living is very low.  Jason, last question. Comparing degrees of rationality in relationships, it is less complicated being with someone who is a typical left leaner, but you love talking with. I don't know how you measure these things. I mean, as soon as there's a conflict on basic values, it's gonna be a challenge. And depending on your personality, depending on their personality, depending on where the conflict is exactly and all of that, that will ultimately determine how easy or hard that relationship is going to be. So I don't know what's more or less easy. Depends on the specific individuals involved. All right, nobody's updated me on Mexico, Argentina. I assume it's zero, zero. Is that the reality? Another boring zero, zero game. All right, everybody, tomorrow at 3 p.m. Well, 3 p.m. Puerto Rico time, so 2 p.m. East Coast time, 2 p.m. East Coast time. We'll have the AMA Ask Me Anything session. If you contribute $25 or more, you should have gotten an email with Zoom address to join the Zoom. If you haven't, let me know or let Angelo know at your on bookshow.com.  You're on at your on brookshow.com. Argentina's leading 1-0. Good, good, thank you for letting me know. 86 minute, all right, it's almost over. Messi scored the goal, even better. I'm really happy for Messi. He deserves to do well in the World Cup. He's such a great player, such a great player. All right, so tomorrow, 2 p.m. East Coast time, we will do our Q&A session. I'm not sure exactly what'll happen on Monday. I will definitely do a morning session, news session, not sure about the evening, and then I'm traveling. So I will see you all tomorrow. Thanks, guys. Oh, don't forget to like the show before you leave. There should be 100 likes easily, given how many people watch today live, and it really helps with the algorithm. It's really, it doesn't cost you anything. It's really easy. And if you want to support the show monthly, that's the best way to support the show. Patreon, subscribe star, locals, or your on bookshow.com slash support, or if you want to use Venmo, let me know. But let's get the monthly support up, guys. That would be great. Bye, everybody. Have a great time. Thank you, thank you, thank you for all the superchatters. In particular, thank you for Weave 8060. I'm really happy that you enjoyed the show and for the $400 contribution. Thank you, guys. All right.


Let's use a little phrase for the ego, the wild child. We'll call it the wild child this morning. Why? Because the ego doesn't have a parent. We all know in this world, you know, that the children can have sometimes a little bit of a wild streak in there. And then the parents supposed to be very patient and loving, disciplining at times and so on and so forth. But we could say more guiding. You know, when the child was to just go off and do anything it wants, then the parent is there to offer guidance and wisdom. And you could say one thing about the ego is it doesn't have a parent.  And the thing about it is it doesn't have a parent. It doesn't have a source. It wasn't created. So it doesn't know what creation is. It has nothing creative about it. You know, when people talk about with music and art and all these different things being creative, that's not really created in the truest abstract sense. Creation is a state of mind.  And that thing, it's very erratic. It's, let's say, impulsive. It's very impulsive. If you're wild and you're erratic, you're impulsive as well. And in that sense, it has no steadiness to it. It has no stability to it. So why do we need commitments? Let's talk about what Suzanne said. If we could just come at the thing, well, if I just think of it in terms of committing in the present moment, then that feels much better. I can make people. Here's the wedding bell. I love you now. That's the end of the bell. You may now kiss the bride. But the thing about it is everyone who comes to this world or believes they're here in this world believes in the ego. And the ego is the denial of the present moment. It's the denial of the present moment, the denial of eternity. So even when we say, okay, I just want to make a commitment to the present moment, ultimately that's really deep down what you are committing to because that's your escape back to eternity, but to say the words commitment is different from actually committing. And we all know that. Sometimes we say, okay, I'm committed. Sometimes. I'm committed partially. I'm committed. The ego, of course, is the wild child. And in one sense, it's like the mind that is being asked to make a commitment is identified with the ego. So of course there's going to be resistance to the commitment because commitment is going to be a device that the Holy Spirit uses to bring the mind back into stability into stillness. So ego, wild child, impulsive doesn't even know what commitment is. Impulsiveness doesn't know what commitment is. So there's zero awareness of commitment. Now the Holy Spirit into a deceived mind has to introduce the concept, the idea of commitment as a device. Just like we talked about leader follower, teacher, student, you know, those are all of these devices. Introduce this commitment as a device and says, okay, I'm going to work with you on this one. Why is it important to have this device of commitment because the atonement which is the correction, which is the goal of the curriculum is a total commitment. Seeing the difference between the ego with no awareness of what commitment is and the atonement which is the escape from this realm is the total commitment. So this is why the Holy Spirit has to introduce the commitments. And it's really, they're just mind training commitments. When you commit to a marriage, for example, I mean some of the wedding vows that go on marriages, you know, till death do you part to death. It's kind of a morbid commitment. Anything that involves death, a better question that one before you. Say yes to the minister.  You're really going for something much beyond the death. You're actually going for a state of harmony. Till harmony dissolves the two of us and we merge in bliss and union. I like that a little better than till death do you part. So you could see the commitment is just a stepping stone idea that is designed to bring the mind toward total commitment which is the goal to introduce commitment and bring it there. That's why when we talk about monogamy or we talk about commitment to a diet or commitment to an exercise regimen or commitment to a martial arts program yoga even making a commitment some of you maybe thought, I don't know if I'm going to lose or not but maybe you felt I need to make a commitment to go and I'm going to pay for it but I need to make a commitment to go I don't know how it's going to fit into my schedule but I feel like a strong commitment to go to it. So we are getting opportunities to make these commitments as we go along and they can be very very guided by the Holy Spirit and they're all temporary. Let's make sure we understand that these are temporary devices not like signing in blood signing your soul away in blood sometimes ego will try to convince you that you're doing that but of course it's terrified of the commitment so that's why that comes in and as long as you start to see these are just temporary devices that are used and that the deeper you go with this commitment you do come more to the present moment to the actual present moment which is the atonement and so it is an alignment with that. That's where you get that easy feeling like that's really part of the goal that's what commitments are designed to do to take you there. As far as breaking commitments there's a big stigma about keeping them and breaking them it's really not so much about keeping them or breaking them but it's like again what is the guidance which advisor in your mind are you listening to there shouldn't be a stigma with breaking like a negative thing with keeping in the sense that there are times where the Holy Spirit wants you to keep a commitment and then there are times when the Holy Spirit will say now let that go I've got another assignment for you don't hold on to that one here's your next one so it's not so much a stigma around keeping or breaking it's more just what is guided what is guided what serves the whole is always a question underneath this can be involved with personal or interpersonal relationships with jobs with leases leases for houses or apartments condos and so forth it can involve a commitment to watch your neighbors dogs and cats there are all kinds of temporary commitments that are all of this used for mind training for helping to flush ego out of this hiding place and bring it up into awareness and then eventually just make that final commitment where you make the final call for God in an unequivocal way in other words you make a yes to God and not a but yes but yes although it's an unequivocal yes that would be the determinant in mind not a form thing so that's just a little mini talk on commitments